Madness, Murder and Dictionary-Making

In June 2009, Texas-based Global Language Monitor (GLM)¹ announced that "Web 2.0" was English's millionth word (or, more correctly, term). 

"Currently there is a new word created every 98 minutes or about 14.7 words per day. ... [T]he recent Google/Harvard Study of the Current Number of Words in the English Language is 1,022,000.  The number of words in the English language according to GLM now stands at:  1,008,879..." The Global Language Monitor (3 Feb 2011).

Some people cheer at these sorts of announcements, while others shake their heads in derision, insisting upon the impossibility of such a tally. So, how did they do it? Take the most up-to-date dictionary and add all the new words not yet included?

Reasonable, right?

Absolutely not, and the reasons why can be found in Jack Lynch's recent book, The Lexicographer's Dilemma. I came across it at the Main Branch of the New York Public Library's bookstore, home of some of the only books you can remove from this non-lending library. Let this Associate Professor of English at New Jersey's Rutgers University, treat you to a whirlwind tour of just what constitutes a dictionary entry -- a word (term), in other words -- and how it qualifies for inclusion in a standard dictionary.

Courtesy amazon.co.uk

To start, the lexicographer must make some basic decisions: What kinds of terms will the dictionary include? When does a word become archaic? Obsolete? Should I include them? What makes a new coinage stick worthy of recognition? What about nonce words?

We also learn that a so-called all-inclusive dictionary is really only a subset of the tongue. Technical terms (eg, chemicals) exist for both known and theoretical compounds, yet the only ones you'll find will be those in common use. For the rest, consult an all-inclusive specialized dictionary. Note however, there some omissions always remain.

Prefixes and suffixes present another dilemma. Take "un-" and its cognates. They can be attached to almost any noun, verb, adjective and adverb -- the list is virtually infinite. So what does the lexicographer do? Include the prefixes and suffixes themselves and their common children. Leave it up to the reader to put the rest together, says Lynch.

But Dilemma goes further than describing the mysteries of dictionary compilation, it also discusses the rise and continued fascination with the concept of "proper" English. For example, while the French, Italians and Spanish, among others, each have an official body (eg, France's Académie française) to rule upon what is proper, English has always been laissez-faire. Says Lynch:

"There are at least three reasons for the failure [to set up an Academy], the first of which is specific to English. The world's English-speaking countries, with their long tradition of favoring individual liberty, have never supported the kind of absolutist, top-down government that linguistic regulation seems to require. Britain, the United States, Ireland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand -- all distrust centralized regulation." (The Lexicographer's Dilemma)

Some people recognize Canadian English

Our author has slipped up on Canada: The QOLF (OQLF in French) aka Quebec's Language Cops routinely castigates France² on it's improper use of its language and others'. One commission of the QOLF, determines the correct language of place-names, resulting in changes to the spelling of the names of many cities, towns and villages (eg, the former St-Sauveur is now Saint-Sauveur). The names of hundreds of streets have adjusted along with alterations to their spelling (eg, Longueuil's Lafayette Blvd sometimes appears on signs as "La Fayette". This commission also issues pronouncements regarding the English language, for example, it forbids the phrases "in Quebec City", "in Quebec" and "in the city of Quebec" stating that the only "in the city of Québec" is correct. So,it's back to school for the lot of you!

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Noah Webster³ was perhaps the most successful person to impose his will upon the tongue, using his new dictionary to differentiate his new nation's speech from that of the old. Choosing one pronunciation among several for the letter "Z" and dropping the "u" from words such as "colour" and "honour" are among the most famous.

Anyone with an interest in dictionaries and the evolution of modern English will derive much enjoyment from The Lexicographer's Dilemma. (lol -- I did.)

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Murray wanted the entire 
English language included.
 Courtesy simonwinchester

If you enjoy dictionaries as I do, you'll love Simon Winchester's two volumes on the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) -- The Meaning of Everything: The Story of the Oxford English Dictionary and the more specific, The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary (aka The Surgeon of Crowthorne: A Tale of Murder, Insanity and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary). A so-called all-inclusive dictionary, the OED was originally meant to include the entire language, but once the work got under way, choices, such as those discussed in The Lexicographer's Dilemma were made. Since no other lexicographic work had the scope of the OED, its editors made up many of the rules as they went along. Never dry, Winchester describes the ups and downs, false starts and wasted effort with aplomb. Back then, people were expected to learn through their mistakes. None of today's ubiquitous blamestorming.

While many Americans may not be familiar with the OED, as a Canadian, an abridged version has always been my intimate, both on the bookshelf and at school. I procured my own copy of the Concise Oxford Dictionary from an early pay cheque. Now in its eleventh edition, the current hardcover version is 1728 pages long and includes over 240,000 entries; mine pre-dates the second edition of the full OED and ends at page 1566. The next full edition, nicknamed OED3, is under way.

 The Meaning of Everything: The Story of the Oxford English Dictionary is also the story of Professor James Augustus Henry Murray⁴, a self-taught polyglot Scot. A man with little formal education, he spent close to 50 years leading the production of the first edition. Nobody had any inkling of the actual time (70 years!) and cost involved (it has never turned a profit) when Murray was hired, but the results were beyond everyone's wildest dreams. If you don't love the OED before you read Winchester's book, you should after. I've read, not just consulted the dictionary since childhood, and let's just say, Winchester made me feel vindicated.

However, the task facing Murray and his team was impossible without the help of hundreds of volunteers. Working from home or elsewhere, and using the materials Murray et al provided, they produced the famous "slips"; the raw material of the dictionary's entries. The sub-editors verified and completed the entry information.

Courtesy amazon.ca

In The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary (aka The Surgeon of Crowthorne: A Tale of Murder, Insanity and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary) we encounter the sorry tale of Dr WC Minor, one of the most prolific volunteers, with over 10,000 contributions. When invited to a dictionary-related celebration, he sent his regrets -- he was a Broadmoor inmate (an asylum for the criminally insane). A medical doctor, he had travelled to Britain hoping to alleviate his mental problems, but had grown worse and landed in jail after committing murder. Professor Murray and his team eventually helped the American Civil War veteran return to his family's care. Over the years they had come to know and respect this meticulous but troubled man:

"The unique manner of his procedure was soon to become a hallmark of Minor's astonishing accuracy and eye for detail. His work would win the admiration and awe of all who were later to see it; even today the quires preserved in the dictionary archives are such as to make people gasp." (The Professor and the Madman aka The Surgeon of Crowthorne: A Tale of Murder, Insanity and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary)

Paul Martin of BBC2's Antiques Roadshow wannabe Flog It investigates the story of the OED [possibly the 1 Nov 2010 episode of Flog It] and sees some of Minor's "slips": 

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Incredibly, the Dictionary's history is even more far-reaching. To read The Ring of Words: Tolkien and the Oxford English Dictionary is to delve into the life of JRR Tolkien, whose first job as an Oxford graduate was to spend two years as a sub-editor of the OED. 

Courtesy tolkienlibrary.com

And what a sub-editor! As a small child, Tolkien was unusual. He invented his own languages. Not just words -- languages with entire grammars. So, although most of us know him as a novelist, he was primarily a philologist and professor. Specializing in Anglo-Saxon and the rest of the Germanic language family, his legacy within the OED lies within the letter "W". 

Histories of a variety of Tolkien's own words can be found at the end of the book. These provide fascinating insight into neologisms initially developed for his stories, some of which have become commonplace in the realm of fantasy writing and gaming.

As a novelist, when JRR employed fantasy tongues -- he wasn't just using individual words; he was using entire fantasy languages. An intriguing tale of an unusual ability, and for lovers of The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings series, and Tolkien's other works, consider The Ring as the ultimate prequel.

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Courtesy: Amazon.ca

If you want to learn more about the inspiration for the methods used in the OED and many earlier foreign dictionaries, pick up Henry Hitchings' Defining the World: The Extraordinary Story of Dr Johnson's Dictionary, the tale of Samuel Johnson and his ground-breaking A dictionary of the English language in which the words are deduced from their originals, and illustrated in their significations by examples from the best writers. I picked up my paperback, under the name of Dr Johnson's Dictionary: The Extraordinary Story of the Book that Defined the World, while on holiday in Oxford and became hooked after a few pages. Close to 500 words from the Dictionary are discussed and each of the 35 chapters is named after a dictionary entry, eg, "bookworm" (ch 4), "lexicographer" (ch 14), the famous⁵ "patron" (ch 24), and "triumphant" (ch 30). 

Selection from Johnson's

Dictionary. Courtesy

 amazon.com.

Johnson's work was THE tome to consult for 150 years or so, until it was surpassed in 1928 by the OED's first edition. Johnson is still available in print, and abridged editions abound. If you're looking to pick up an original version, be prepared to pay for the nose -- Johnson remains popular. The English poet TS Eliot praised Johnson  and the erudite American literary critic Harold Bloom, author of The Western Canon: The Books and School of the Ages includes his works in the canon.

"What makes the dictionary so unique -- if not eccentric -- are Johnson's personal definitions. He was a man of many peeves and freely notes his disapproval when a word offends him ..." Matthew Price (Boston Globe, 27 Nov 2005)

One of many abridged editions is Johnson's Dictionary: A Modern Selection (Dover). From abbey-lubber (a lazy person living under false pretenses in a religious house) to zootomy (animal dissection), it's 465 pages of definitions and illustratory passages (many written by Johnson himself). Included, of course, is the term "excise", an inclusion that landed the author in court. Who won? Hint: Judges don't like paying taxes either.

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Notes

¹ According to BBC News (10 Jun 2009), once GLM finds a word on the Internet 25,000 times, it is recognized as a neologism. "Web 2.0" won over Slumdog Millionaire's song "Jai Ho" and "slumdog" as well as the gaming "n00b", a derogatory term meaning neophyte.

² Montreal Gazette political cartoonist Aislin's take on his government's in meddling overseas.

³ The staid Noah Webster was not a fan of the sometimes flippant Samuel Johnson (discussed elsewhere in this post).

⁴ Should you be interested in reading more about Murray, try his granddaughter, KM Elizabeth Murray's excellent biography, Caught in the Web of Words: James Murray and the Oxford English Dictionary. My paperback weighs in at a satisfying 386 pages, and while there is no photo plate section in the centre, there are plenty of pictures throughout.

⁵ Johnson wrote a famously insulting letter to Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield, his erstwhile patron.

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Books mentioned

• The Lexicographer's Dilemma
• Oxford English Dictionary (OED) (in slipcase with magnifying glass version or full 20-volume set)
• The Meaning of Everything: The Story of the Oxford English Dictionary
• The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary (aka The Surgeon of Crowthorne: A Tale of Murder, Insanity and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary)
• Concise Oxford Dictionary
• The Ring of Words: Tolkien and the Oxford English Dictionary
• The Hobbit: or There and Back Again
• The Lord of the Rings (all three books in one volume)
• Defining the World: The Extraordinary Story of Dr Johnson's Dictionary (aka  Dr Johnson's Dictionary: The Extraordinary Story of the Book that Defined the World)
• A dictionary of the English language in which the words are deduced from their originals, and illustrated in their significations by examples from the best writers (paperback Gale ECCO edition)
• The Western Canon: The Books and School of the Ages
• Johnson's Dictionary: A Modern Selection (Dover)
• Caught in the Web of Words: James Murray and the Oxford English Dictionary