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The evolution of English lexicography By: James Augustus Henry Murray (1837-1915) |
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The Evolution of English Lexicography BY JAMES A.H. MURRAY
M.A., LL.D., D.C.L., PH.D. DELIVERED IN THE SHELDONIAN THEATRE, OXFORD, JUNE 22, 1900
THE EVOLUTION OF ENGLISH LEXICOGRAPHY
When the 'Act to facilitate the provision of Allotments for the
Labouring Classes' was before the House of Commons in 1887, a
well known member for a northern constituency asked the Minister who
had charge of the measure for a definition of the term allotment ,
which occurred so often in the Bill. The Minister somewhat brusquely
told his interrogator to 'look in the Dictionary,' at which there was,
according to the newspapers, 'a laugh.' The member warmly protested
that, being called upon to consider a measure dealing with things
therein called 'Allotments', a term not known to English Law, nor
explained in the Bill itself, he had a right to ask for a definition.
But the only answer he received was 'Johnson's Dictionary! Johnson's
Dictionary!' at which, according to the newspapers, the House gave
'another laugh,' and the interrogator subsided. The real humour of the
situation, which was unfortunately lost upon the House of Commons,
was, that as agricultural allotments had not been thought of in the
days of Dr. Johnson, no explanation of the term in this use is to be
found in Johnson's Dictionary; as, however, this happened to be
unknown, alike to the questioner and to the House, the former missed a
chance of 'scoring' brilliantly, and the House the chance of a third
laugh, this time at the expense of the Minister. But the replies of
the latter are typical of the notions of a large number of persons,
who habitually speak of 'the Dictionary,' just as they do of 'the
Bible,' or 'the Prayer book,' or 'the Psalms'; and who, if pressed as
to the authorship of these works, would certainly say that 'the
Psalms' were composed by David, and 'the Dictionary' by Dr. Johnson. I have met persons of intelligence who supposed that if Dr. Johnson
was not the sole author of 'the Dictionary' a notion which, in view
of the 'pushfulness' wherewith, in recent times, Dictionaries,
American and other, have been pressed upon public notice, is now not
so easily tenable he was, at least, the 'original author,' from whose
capacious brain that work first emanated. Whereas, in truth, Dr.
Johnson had been preceded by scores of workers, each of whom had added
his stone or stones to the lexicographic cairn, which had already
risen to goodly proportions when Johnson made to it his own splendid
contribution. For, the English Dictionary, like the English Constitution, is the
creation of no one man, and of no one age; it is a growth that has
slowly developed itself adown the ages. Its beginnings lie far back in
times almost prehistoric. And these beginnings themselves, although
the English Dictionary of to day is lineally developed from them, were
neither Dictionaries, nor even English. As to their language, they
were in the first place and principally Latin: as to their substance,
they consisted, in large part at least, of glosses . They were Latin,
because at the time to which we refer, the seventh and eighth
centuries of our era, Latin was in Western Europe the only language of
books, the learning of Latin the portal to all learning. And they were
glosses in this wise: the possessor of a Latin book, or the member
of a religious community which were the fortunate possessors of
half a dozen books, in his ordinary reading of this literature, here
and there came across a difficult word which lay outside the familiar
Latin vocabulary. When he had ascertained the meaning of this, he
often, as a help to his own memory, and a friendly service to those
who might handle the book after him, wrote the meaning over the word
in the original text, in a smaller hand, sometimes in easier Latin,
sometimes, if he knew no Latin equivalent, in a word of his own
vernacular. Such an explanatory word written over a word of the text
is a gloss . Nearly all the Latin MSS... Continue reading book >>
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