English 598R Research Paper

The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga

"High Points of English Lexicography as Illuminated by a Discussion of Prescription and Description"

by

Timothy W. Hooker

Spring, 1990

 

What single book would one choose to be cast away with on a deserted island? My choice would be a Webster’s Unabridged, that great mother of books, that matrix from which one man delivers Finnegan’s Wake, another A Shropshire Lad. what a glorious prospect-- to be alone on an island, with an opportunity to sit back against a banana tree, and read all the way from aardvark to zymurgy!

                     --Lawrence Clark Powell, The Alchemy of Books

     Dictionaries hold a special place in the English-speaking language. English dictionaries are often used as final arbiter of the correct meaning and usage of a word or construction. Courts adopt them to help set the parameters of law; teachers use dictionaries to relate pronunciations and etymologies to their students; friends use dictionaries to settle disputes; and many speakers and writers of the language consult a dictionary to find the “right” way to use the language in expressing their ideas. The authority of a dictionary often goes unchallenged by the layman, as if it were Holy Writ.

     Dictionaries, however, and the language they record, are always changing. While some words will become obsolete, others will change their meaning. Entirely new words will enter the language. Moreover, the purpose and focus of dictionaries change. This essay looks at the changes in English dictionaries from two points-of-view. First, I will compile a condensed history of English dictionary-making, concentrating on three points: 1) Dr. Johnson’s 1755 Dictionary, 2) the work of Noah Webster, and 3) the making of the Oxford English Dictionary. Second, I hope to interpret this history in terms of “prescriptive” and “descriptive” lexicography. “Prescriptive” lexicography cannot be separated from the lexicographer’s bias. Prescriptiveness causes the dictionary-maker to try to mold the language into what he hopes it will be. “Descriptive” lexicography, on the other hand, describes the language as it is. The descriptive lexicographer makes no value judgments as to the “goodness” or “badness” of a word; the descriptive lexicographer simply records the word, its meaning, and usage (Landau 32).

     The earliest English dictionaries were not purely English. They were often English-Latin bilingual comparative works or lists of English words with their French equivalents. The wholesale introduction of new words and “hard” words in the second half of the sixteenth century made necessary, or at least saleable, English word lists. These “hard word” lexicons, such as Richard Mulcaster’s Elementarie (1582) and Thomas Thomas’s Dictionarium Linguae Latinae et Anglicanae (1588), did not set out to make catalogs. Some scholars feel that Richard Huloet’s Abecedarium Anglo-Latin (1552) was the first, but many scholars consider Robert Cawdrey’s A Table Alphabeticall (1604) to be the first work of English lexicography. In 1598, John Florio’s A Worlde of Wordes set in motion lexicographical principles that Johnson would use in his Dictionary a century and a half later. Florio’s Italian-English dictionary quoted contemporary Italian authors to illustrate definitions, and included slang and taboo words to describe various body parts and functions (Landau 38-9). It would appear that at this infant stage of lexicography, the word list compilers were more descriptive than prescriptive. It seems that their major objective was to record the words in use, and show their equivalent in other languages.

     Cawdrey’s “hard word” list, A Table Alphabeticall of Hard Words, was a small octavo volume of approximately twenty-five hundred terms, and was intended for women (Landau 39-41). The title page read:

A Table Alphabeticall, conteyning and teaching the true vvriting, and vnderstanding of hard vsuall English words, borrowed from the Hebrew, Greek, Latine, or French. &c. With the interpretation thereof by plaine English words, gathered for the benefit & helpe of Ladies, Gentlewomen, or any other unskilled persons. (Cawdrey 1)

     Cawdrey and other lexicographers felt women to be their chief audience because women rarely received the quality of education available to men. The Table Alphabeticall was totally unoriginal. Cawdrey’s word lists were based primarily on two previous works. It appears he pirated the work of Thomas Thomas and Edmund Coote with little or no change. Thomas’s Dictionarium, an abridged version of Cooper’s Thesaurus Linguae (1565), was used by Cawdrey in his work and probably spawned the idea of including encyclopedic articles in dictionaries (Landau 41). Coote’s English Schoole-maister was written for both teacher and pupil, focusing on teaching the rudimentary skills necessary to be admitted to Grammar School (Coote 1). The English Schoole-maister’s chief credit goes to being the first attempt at an English dictionary and the source from which Cawdrey drew heavily. Several scholars believe that Cawdrey got the idea for the dictionary from Mulcaster. Allen Walker Read, in “Dictionary” in The New Encyclopaedia Britannica (1977), asserted Cawdry’s work was plagiarism. It is doubtful that Cawdrey invented many of the words used (Landau 41, 315). It seems that Cawdry’s work naturally lends itself to prescriptivism, not from a bias of what the language should be, but from what the market called for. Whether Cawdrey’s work was plagiarism or piracy, the Table Alphabeticall was serving a function to its readers. Those readers’ interests were not on the etymology and proper definition of the simple ordinary words. The intent from the opening page of the Table Alphabeticall was to help women in conversation and writing. Thus, it appears that A Table Alphabeticall was a work of prescription.

     Next came An English Expositor (1616) by John Bullokar, containing twice as many terms as Cawdrey’s. As a physician, Bullokar included terms from medicine as well as philosophy, logic, law, astronomy, and heraldry. He also included Latin words that had been Anglicized. In 1623, The English Dictionarie: or, An Interpreter of Hard English Words by Henry Cockeram appeared. Cockeram divided his work into three sections: 1) “hard words” with their simple equivalents, 2) simple words with fancy equivalents, and 3) an encyclopedic portion that listed mythological creatures, gods, goddesses, birds, beasts, trees, rivers, and so on. Some of his definitions were unintentionally humorous: e.g., phylologie as “love of much babbling.” Cockeram’s work was the first English-English word list to be called a “dictionary.” The next dictionary to be published was Thomas Blount’s Glossographia (1656). Also guilty of copying others’ work, the Blount Glossographia is notable for its attempts at etymology, its “inkhorn” terms, and the introduction of woodcut illustrations of heraldry (Landau 41-3).

     Two years later, The New World of English Words (1658) by Edward Phillips was published. Phillips introduced a list of specialists with his dictionary in order to lend clout to the work. Whether Phillips actually consulted the prominent experts he named is unclear. Either way, he initiated the concept of staff consultation (Landau 43).

     The chief influence of Stephen Skinner’s Etymologicon Linguae Anglicanae (1671) was his attention to etymology. In 1676, Elisha Coles published An English Dictionary. Still a book for explaining “hard words,” the twenty-five thousand word dictionary included several words obsolete since Chaucer’s days. Coles also included cant (thieves’ argot) and dialectal terms, a concept new to the general English dictionary (Landau 43).

     It seems that English lexicography to this point was often descriptive of the narrowly prescribed area that was covered. The English language was growing toward a level of orthodoxy. Later, English scholars would be concerned with what was “standard” or “substandard” or colloquial” or of the “prestige” dialect. In the seventeenth century, dictionary makers were focusing their attention on compiling a lexicon of words which they believed needed explanation, even for literate people. No one yet had suggested that “easy” words needed inclusion.

     In the eighteenth century, two lexicographers of prominence appeared before Johnson: John Kersey and Nathan Bailey. In 1702, John Kersey published A New English Dictionary. It was the first English dictionary to attempt systematically to cover common words as well as difficult ones. This new direction in English lexicography rejected doctored Latin words, along with words considered obsolete or specialized. It proved to be a turning point away from the bilingual Latin-English wordbooks, aligning itself more with spelling guides such as Coote’s. In 1706, Kersey revised Phillips’ New World of English Words, doubling the size of the original. Kersey added approximately twenty thousand terms to bring the total to thirty-eight thousand. Many of these terms were technical or scientific, and borrowed from John Harris’ Lexicon Technicum: or, An Universal English Dictionary of the Arts and Sciences (1704). Kersey was among the first to recognize polysemy and to list the multiple meanings of the same word (Landau 44). Kersey gives the following word and definitions:

Limb, a part of the Body: In Mathematicks, the outermost Border of an Astrolabe, or other instrument: also the Circumference of the Original Circle in any Projection of the Sphere upon a plane: In Astronomy, the utmost Border of the Disk, or Body of the Sun or Moon, when either is in an Eclipse. (Kersey 5)

     Note that Kersey fails to mention limb in the context of a tree, even though the OED shows limb used as a tree branch as early as Beowulf (sb1, 4a).

     Nathan Bailey, in 1721, published An Universal Etymological English Dictionary. It contained approximately forty thousand words. Bailey, a schoolmaster, gave great attention to etymology. Not only did Bailey include cant, dialect, and obsolete terms (including some from Spenser), but also discussions of proverbs. It is unclear whether Bailey understood the difference between dictionaries and encyclopedias, but his work remained quite popular and was later the chief competition of Dr. Johnson’s Dictionary. A large contribution of Bailey’s to lexicography was his work with placing stress on words. He used stress marks to show when a vowel was “open” and “closed.” Elementary to the phonetic treatment words receive in modern dictionaries, it was a step forward. In 1727, Volume II, a supplement to the original edition, was published. It contained two parts: 1) a set of words ostensibly omitted from Volume I, and 2) a miscellany of encyclopedic information on names, places, theological and mythological terms, and the like. It also had a prescriptive usage guide which pointed out good usages and questionable ones. Later editions modified the work. Bailey made a good-faith effort to represent the language in a descriptive manner. He took great pains to include the common words of the language, including vulgar and taboo terms. In 1730, Bailey put together the two volumes, deleted some encyclopedic articles and added others. He called it Dictionarium Britannicum, a massive work containing forty-eight thousand terms. It was the working base for Dr. Johnson’s Dictionary and remained the standard bearer in English lexicography until Dr. Johnson’s Dictionary of the English Language (Landau 44-8). Clearly, Bailey was a descriptive lexicographer.

     It appears, however, that the distinction between descriptivism and prescriptivism goes deeper than which words the lexicographer chooses to include in the lexicon. The distinction between the two is often blurred, but seems to hinge on the motives of the dictionary maker. Is a particular lexicographer’s work a forum from which he attempts to impose his biases concerning the language on its speakers? Is a dictionary maker creating a “prestige dialect” where there is none? Is a dictionary maker trying to tamper with orthography and construction? Is an editor being inclusive of the contemporary language?

     It appears that the lexicography mirrors a language, its speakers, and their evolution. As such, instances of descriptive and prescriptive lexicography may be more clearly delineated.

b) Dr. Samuel Johnson’s 1755 Dictionary

     Seventeenth and eighteenth century English writers were looking for a way to improve the English language. They wanted to establish it, so it would remain unchanged and, thus, preserved for future generations. This attitude grew, in part, out of a revival of the classics, and misconceptions regarding classical languages (Emerson 56). Changes in approved Latin style indirectly aided the rise of the vernaculars. Renaissance humanists wanted to return to the Latin of Cicero and Virgil, abhorring the medieval form of Latin (Bloomfield 301). In comparing the great changes in diction, grammar, and style of one period with another, English writers feared their literature (in its unstable medium) would quickly become antiquated and relegated to libraries never to be read again.

     This fear of linguistic instability had led to the establishing of Academies in Italy and France. The idea of establishing an Academy in England was discussed through much of the seventeenth century by leading writers. Milton did not directly propose an Academy; he held in high esteem “him who endeavors, by precept and by rules, to perpetuate that style and idiom of speech and composition which have flourished in the purest periods of the language.” Dryden regretted “that, speaking so noble a language as we do, we have not a more certain measure of it, as they do in France, where they have an Academy enacted for that purpose.” Dryden also stated that “I am desirous, if it were possible, that we might all write with the same certainty of words, and purity of phrase, to which the Italians first arrived and after them the French; at least that we might advance so far as our tongue is capable of such a standard” (Emerson 57). Swift renewed the proposal of an Academy in the eighteenth century, and suggested that the Tatler exercise its authority as censor. Addison, in the August 4, 1711 Spectator No. 135 favored “something like an Academy that, by the best authorities and rules drawn from the analogy of languages, shall settle all controversies between grammar and idiom” (Addison 257).

     Johnson, agreeing with Swift and the others about the importance of establishing the language, rejected the idea of an Academy (Emerson 58). Around April of 1746, Johnson drafted “A Short Scheme for compiling a new Dictionary of the English Language.” The manuscript finally went to the printer in August of 1747 in the form of a letter to Lord Chesterfield entitled The Plan of a Dictionary of the English Language (Yung 37).

     In deciding terms to define, usefulness was paramount to Johnson:

The value of a work must be estimated by its use: It is not enough that a dictionary delights the critic, unless at the same time it instructs the learner; as it is to little purpose, that an engine amuses the philosopher by the subtilty of its mechanism, if it requires so much knowledge in its application, to as be of no advantage to the common workman. (Landau 50)

The Plan also exhibited Johnson’s desire to let his Dictionary serve to some extent as a book of moral instruction:

It will be proper to observe some obvious rules, such as of preferring writers of the first reputation to those of inferior rank, of noting the quotations with accuracy, and of selecting, when it can be conveniently done, such sentences, as, besides their immediate use, may give pleasure or instruction by conveying some elegance of language, or some precept of prudence, or piety (Yung 39).

     In fact, Johnson’s goals for his project were quite ambitious. Naively, he proposed to “preserve the purity and ascertain the meaning of our English idiom.” He felt that “one great end of this undertaking is to fix the English language.” This stated goal was to survey the whole of the English language and show the history of every word. But as early as 1747, Johnson hinted that “perhaps, to correct the language of nations by books of grammar, and amend their manners by discourses of morality, may be tasks equally difficult” (Landau 50-1).

     The Plan, however, was published after work had begun. On June 18, 1746, Dr. Johnson contracted with booksellers to write a dictionary. From employee records, it is believed that work began immediately. In a garret on Gough Street, six assistant copyists began copying quotations from numerous books. Johnson would read and mark a passage, then hand it over to an amanuensis who would copy the quotation on a slip of paper. The underlined word on the slip would then be cataloged and marked complete (Yung 37-9). With this production system, he had “A” through “Carry 21” printed by May 1752. In October 1753, “Dame 2” to “Grate” was finished and sent to press. In early 1754, “Grate” to “Kyd” was printed. On April 15, 1755, the finished work was published in two large folio volumes. Two thousand copies were made, and after that a second edition in fascicles of three to four printed sheets per week was begun. Demand for the second edition waned to where toward the end there were only 768 copies made. Their proprietors issued an abridged version of Johnson’s work which remained popular for the next thirty years (Yung 40-3).

     The Dictionary consisted of four main parts. First and foremost are the definitions and their illustrative quotations. Second, Johnson included etymologies, often fanciful. Third, the lexicographer wrote “The History of the English Language,” and fourth, he also wrote “A Grammar of the English Tongue.” As Sledd and Kolb pointed out:

Not all parts of his work are of the same high quality. His grammar and history of the language and his etymologies are mediocre, as one would expect of a man of Johnson’s century, training, and temperament when called upon to do single-handed the work of forty men. (Harp xviii-xix)

     He began with 230,000 quotations from books to illustrate his words. He hoped the quotations would become a mini-encyclopedia of philosophy, history, literature, and theology for the reader. However, less than half were used in the Dictionary. And when the constraints of space dictated, he edited another’s quotations judiciously. Of the authors cited, he used the best. In the first volume of the two volume folio first edition he quoted Addison and Bacon 2,500 times each, Dryden over 5,600 times, and Shakespeare 8,700 times. The Bible is used almost 2,300 times. Philosophers are quoted 10,000 times (1,600 of which are from John Locke); and religious writers contribute 5,000 citations (Harp xix-xx).

     The Dictionary is useful today in helping readers of pre-nineteenth century English literature understand the “strange” usage of familiar words. For example, Johnson defined to garble as “to sift; to part; to separate the good from the bad.” He also defines harangue as “a speech; a popular oration.” Nervous was defined as “well strung; strong; vigorous.” For genius, Johnson used the classical meaning. To the Latin speaker, “genius” meant a person’s guardian or tutelary spirit, and the corollary word ingenium referred to one’s own particular abilities and talents. The closest the Dictionary came to the modern idea of genius was “a man endowed with superior faculties” (Harp xxiii-xxvi).

     The Dictionary also marked the change in meanings as they were occurring. Johnson’s treatment of “inspiration” is a prime example of a word going in more than one direction. From the quotations of earlier writers, such as Watts, Denham, and Shakespeare, inspiration is understood to be “infusion of ideas into the mind by a superior power.” But because of scientific study, inspiration was also defined as “the act of drawing in the breath.” This shift not only showed a move to scientific applications, it set the stage for a new set of metaphors, more humanly located, to go with the word (Harp xxxi). With the word imitation, the reader sees an unsettledness that reflects deeper transformations within the word. Johnson gives imitation three definitions: 1) the act of copying; attempting to resemble; 2) that which is offered as a copy; 3) a method of translating looser than paraphrase, in which modern examples and illustrations are used for ancient, or domestic for foreign. These definitions are, at best, unfulfilling. By Johnson’s own treatment of the word, the reader can see some of the word’s shift from an external meaning to an internal meaning (Harp xxxii).

     Each term defined, however, yielded much to its reader. Below is an example of Johnson’s work:

REA’LITY. n.s. [realite’. Fr. from real.] 1. Truth; verity; what is, not what merely seems.

I would have them well versed in the Greek and Latin poets, without which a man fancies that he understands a critic, when in reality he does not comprehend his meaning.

Addison’s Spectator, No. 291

The best accounts of the appearances of nature in any single instance human penetration can reach, comes infinitely short of its reality and internal constitution; for who can search out the Almighty’s works to perfection?

Cheyne.

2. Something intrinsically important; not merely matter of show.

Of that skill the more thou know’st, the more she will acknowledge thee her head, And to realities yield all her shows, Made so adorn for thy delight the more.

Milton. (Johnson)

     Each definition gave the current orthography of the word, its part of speech, its definition(s) and quotations using the term defined. For a further display of a word’s changes in dictionaries, see the attached appendix.

     Comparing the “Preface” of the published dictionary (1755) to the “Plan” (1747), the reader sees Johnson as a weathered lexicographer who has grown more realistic about his project. He still feels it is the duty of the lexicographer to “correct and proscribe . . . Improprieties and absurdities,” and to rescue English from Gallicisms. Johnson plainly said that it is not his job to “form, but register the language . . . Not [to] teach men how they should think, but relate how they have hitherto expressed their thoughts.” As for “fixing” the language, he said:

Those who have been persuaded to think well of my design, require that it should fix our language, and put a stop to those alterations which time and chance have hitherto been suffered to make in it without opposition. With this consequence I will confess that I have indulged expectation which neither reason nor experience can justify. When we see men grow old and die at a certain time one after another, from century to century, we laugh at the elixir that promises to prolong life to a thousand years, and with equal justice may the lexicographer be derided, who being able to produce no example of a nation that has preserved their words and phrases from mutability, shall imagine that his dictionary can embalm his language, and secure it from corruption and decay, that is in his power to change sublunary nature, or clear the world at once from folly, vanity, and affection (Johnson).

     Johnson’s work went through several printings and was revised in 1818 and again in 1827 by Henry John Todd (Landau 56). Johnson’s Dictionary of the English Language remained the most authoritative English dictionary for over a century in both England and America (Landau 56). In America, Johnson’s prestige would go unchallenged until Noah Webster’s work came along.

     In looking at and thinking about Johnson’s work, in terms of prescriptive and descriptive lexicography, the scholar can see something rare, possibly unique, about Johnson’s work. Before Johnson, lexicography tended to stay with “hard words” and thus, its own brand of prescriptivism. Granted, Bailey could be considered a descriptivist, but still, the seemingly spoken or unspoken rule was to be one or the other. After Johnson, the scholar finds prescriptivism throughout Noah Webster’s work. And early in the OED, Sir James Murray chooses to be a descriptivist. However, Johnson may be the only major lexicographer to have begun his work as a prescriptivist and, by the end of his work, to have become a descriptivist.

     As stated earlier, the distinction goes deeper than which words are included in the word list. Johnson set about to “fix” the language. The lexicon he developed was wanting in scientific and technical terms. It was primarily a literary language he was attempting to put in an ivory tower. Had he compiled his dictionary earlier, it may have held a tighter grip on the language. But within anything’s birth are the seeds of its own destruction. The printing press that was allowing his work to be spread throughout his country and abroad was the same press that was changing the world around him. Mercantilism, science, and reason were on the rise. The old aristocracy was in decline. Johnson’s language was faced with a whole new world perspective. And it was foolish to tell one’s self that he had the elixir to stop the language from aging. By the end of the project, Johnson had gone too far in the literary direction to turn and create a more inclusive work. He saw the futility in trying to crystallize a substance so fluid as language.

II. The Work of Noah Webster

     Noah Webster is possibly the most prescriptive lexicographer in the English language. His theories on etymology, attempts at orthographic reform, and crusading attitude to right all lexicographical wrongs preceding him caused his work, whether good or bad, to be noticed by all. He channeled his intense Americanism into trying to create and, thus, prescribe an English language for Americans that was as far removed from British English as possible.

     Webster felt that if America was to have a healthy self-image, it would need a national identity, complete with its own symbols and spirit. Its national self-consciousness would include a distancing from its dependence on Britain, and would be furthered by a common language and culture distinct from the language and culture of Britain (Morgan 143-5).

     On June 4, 1800, Noah Webster announced in the New Haven newspapers that he would write three dictionaries. “Mr. Webster . . . has in hand a Dictionary of the American Language, a work long since projected . . . The plan contemplated extends to a small Dictionary for schools, one for the counting-house, and a large one for men of science” (Morgan 157).

     Not everyone shared Webster’s enthusiasm for a national language. Anglophiles were horrified at the thoughts of a Connecticut spelling book writer trying to usurp Dr. Samuel Johnson’s hallowed position (Warfel 289). The project attracted many detractors. Warren Dutton, editor of the Federalist Palladium in Boston, felt “modesty . . . is not the leading feature of [Webster’s] literary character.” Dutton speculated that the dictionary must either be pure English words, rendering Webster’s work useless because “we already possess the admirable lexicon of Johnson,” or it must contain vulgar provincial words, unauthorized by good writers and “must surely be the object of ridicule and censure.” Dutton even proposed a title. “[L]et, then, the projected volume of ‘foul‘ and ’unclean’ things bear his own christian name and be called NOAH’S ARK” (Moss 98-9). Joseph Dennie, editor of the Gazette of the United States in Philadelphia, called Webster “a maniac gardener, who, instead of endeavoring to clear his garden of weeds . . . entwines them with his flowers.” Dennie included the following mock letters:

To Mr. noab Wabstur

Sur,

by rading all ovur the nusspaper I find you are after meaking a nue Merrykin Dikshunary; your rite, Sir; for after looking all over the anglish Books, wont find a bit Shillaly big enuf to beat a dog wid. So I hope you’ll take a hint, a put enuff of rem in yours, for Oct ’tis a nate little kit of furniture for any Man’s house so it ’tis.

Pat O’Dogerty

Mr. Webster,

As I’m a lad of spirit, I love all new things, & should like to coin new words, vastly; tother day as Jack Trotter and I were twigging an Old Codger with our Puns & Jokes. out came a develish keen thing from Jack-- dang it, Thats a dagger says I.

Jack says this is a new application of the word Dagger; if so, it is at your servis.

Dick Splashaway

Brother noab

Instead of I keant keatch the keow, an English man or a town bred american would say. I cannot Catch the Cow, but you being a brother Yankey will be sure to spell right in your new Yankey dictionary

yours, &c.

Brother Jonathan

N.B. mind and give us a true deffinition of bundling (Warfel 292-3).

     It appears that Dutton was trying to poison the well from which it was supposed Webster would draw his lexicon. However, Dutton failed to realize that the world had changed since Johnson’s day. New scientific and technological advances were introducing words into the vocabulary that the common people did not know. It was a mistake on Dutton’s part to assume Webster’s expanded lexicon would come from the likes of Dick Splashaway.

     Webster drew fire from the Democrats through the Aurora:

. . . he appears not only to have made himself ridiculous, but to have rendered what he attempted to elucidate more obscure, and to injure or deface what he has intended to improve . . . and proposes to give to the American world no less than three dictionaries! (Warfel 290-1).

     By the time Webster began his work, Johnson’s work was somewhat out-of-date, even in England (Morgan 159). Several traits of Webster’s lexicography make him right for the task.

     In his favor, Webster had a realistic grasp on the nature of language. In his “Preface,” he discussed the difficulty of reforming orthography and pronunciation. He stated the practical point that one cannot “fix” a language so that it will not change. Webster shrugged off the criticisms of a series of dictionaries realizing that Johnson’s work had aged slightly. Webster knew that by the time each volume appeared, the language would have changed. Some words would disappear, some would be coined, some would change their meaning (Morgan 161).

     Finding relaxation in etymology and studying languages during his life, Webster learned the vocabulary of nearly twenty languages (Morgan 161). These included Syriac, Arabic, Samaritan, Hebrew, Ethiopic, Persian, Irish (Hiberno Celtic), Armoric, Anglo-Saxon, German, Dutch, Swedish, Danish, Greek, Latin, Italian, Spanish, French, Russian, Portuguese, Welsh, Gothic, the earliest dialects of English and German, and, of course, English (Warfel 348). This knowledge was problematic because he did not understand the connotative value of the words in usage. His etymologies were useless because he believe the Biblical myth regarding the origin of languages, which led to his thinking that all languages sprang from Mesopotamia. To further his assertions, he invented a language (which he called Chaldee) from a smattering of Hebrew and Syriac. His Chaldean roots, though, were ludicrous. Keeping away from the German philologists allowed him to become his own authority (Pyles 116-7).

     In his favor, Webster was felt to have a natural and intuitive ability to define (Morgan 151). Sir James A. H. Murray said Webster was “a born definer of words” (Warfel 307). In his essays, he painstakingly defined all the important terms discussed. Hating fuzzy thinking, he believed ambiguity to lie at the bottom of many of mankind’s ills. Aware that his lengthy definitions irritated fellow legislators, he felt the need for precision outweighed their inconvenience. Working both for and against Webster was his breadth of knowledge. His studies and experience included law, medicine, economics, journalism, education, lecturing, and travel. This breadth led to an arrogance that fed ignorance (Morgan 161-2).

     In 1806, Webster’s Compendious Dictionary appeared. The Compendious was derived from John Entick’s The New Spelling Dictionary, which had been derived from Dr. Johnson’s work (Morgan 163). It is important because it was the work on which Webster learned lexicography. The 1806 volume whetted the American appetite for this type of reference work, creating a market for dictionaries in America. Although it was a flawed work, it was, as Dr. Johnson said of his own book, “better than no watch at all.” Despite its errors, it created a challenge to its competitors. According to John Morgan, the 1806 work surpassed all the earlier American dictionaries (and Entick’s) in five of the areas that determine greatness in a dictionary:

1) Spelling. Although the first dictionary retained some of Webster’s long advocated spelling reforms, he dropped the most radical. Many, however, have become the accepted orthography to this day.

2) Pronunciation. Webster conservatively guarded against change and squelched the likes of John Walker (who was working with pronunciations, especially in the Boston area).

3) Etymology. There is no evidence to show that Webster was familiar with the work of Jacob Grimm, Franz Bopp, or Sir William Jones; and all of Webster’s theories were eventually proven wrong. However, his work was a step beyond Johnson’s.

4) “Up-to-date"ness. The 1806 work contained the spoken and useful language of the time, plus Americanisms, new words, and scientific terms.

5) Definitions. Webster’s attitude toward definitions was purely objective. He told what the word meant and did not pass judgment on the ideas conveyed by the terms. Impersonally and expressionless, he refused to express his likes and dislikes. His only prejudice is found in the definition of a Federalist as “a friend of the Constitution of the United States.” Even it was eliminated in later editions (Morgan 164-5).

     In the Compendious, his orthographic theories were not as dogmatic as in his spelling books. With his analogical principle, he attempted to set suffixes apart in words, i.e., clas-sic-al and an-im-al, nu-trim-ent and ru-di-ment, but quickly dropped that practice (Warfel 305). He said, “No great changes should be made at once, nor should any change be made which violates established principles, creates great inconvenience, or obliterates the radicals of the language” (Warfel 310). It seems Webster eased off his demands for orthographic reform primarily because most of his suggestions were ignored.

     Webster called attention to his work by criticizing Dr. Johnson in his “Preface” (Warfel 309). Webster drew up seven specific charges against Dr. Johnson’s Dictionary:

1) Johnson inserted a multitude of words in his Dictionary which did not belong to the English language.

2) The selection of authorities was injudicious.

3) Johnson’s Dictionary “contains more of the lowest of all vulgar words than any other now extant, Ash excepted.”

4) There is “a want of just discrimination” in the different senses of words.

5) Johnson failed to discriminate carefully in defining words nearly synonymous.

6) Illustrations were chosen from authors who did not write English with purity: these examples “throw not the least light on his definitions.” “One half of the whole bulk of Johnson’s Dictionary is composed of quotations equally useless.”

7) The etymologies are inaccurate. “On this subject, therefore, almost everything remains to be done” (Warfel 319).

     Part of Webster’s criticism of Johnson came from Horne Tooke’s notion that English was derived from Saxon (Moss 100). The charges that Webster leveled against Johnson’s work actually make Webster more culpable than Johnson. The charges were a manifesto of prescriptivism. How did Webster know which words belong in the English language, and on what grounds? Words represent ideas. Are there certain ideas that English speakers are not supposed to have? How were Johnson’s authorities chosen injudiciously? Are the Bible, Shakespeare, Dryden, and Pope not good enough for Webster? And who defines “vulgar”? Were there words and ideas that Webster hoped to keep from his readers? Is there any real difference between his fourth and fifth charges? It seems Webster could have easily remedied such problems without calling attention to them. By what criteria would Webster or anyone decide what is “purity” in the language, and what isn’t?

     Webster behaved dubiously in his prescriptivism. His proclamations as to what “belongs” or is “vulgar” or is “pure” are a strange mix of bravado and knowing just enough not to know.

     At the close of the Preface to the Compendious, Webster announced his intention of compiling and publishing a full and comprehensive dictionary of the language. He neither expected or solicited the support of the American Anglophiles (Scudder 235-6). It can be contended that the Anglophiles knew more linguistics than Webster.

     Webster wanted to give Americans as much visibility as the British. He stated:

I do not, indeed, expect to add celebrity to the names of Franklin, Washington, Adams, Jay, Madison, Marshall, Ramsay, Dwight, Smith, Trumbull, Hamilton, Belknap, Ames, Mason, Kent, Hare, Silliman, Cleaveland, Walsh, Irving and many other Americans distinguished by their writings or by their science; but it is with pride and satisfaction that I can place them, as authorities, on the same page with those of Boyle, Hooker, Milton, Dryden, Addison, Ray, Milner, Cowper, Thomson, Davy, and Jameson . . . . Franklin and Washington, whose language is their hereditary mother-tongue, unsophisticated by modern grammar, present as pure models of genuine English as Addison and Swift (Scudder 240-1).

     Where Johnson saw the dictionary from a standpoint of literature, Webster saw the dictionary from a standpoint of nationality. Webster was thinking of his own people. Johnson was thinking of the international tribe of scholars and men of letters. Both made their point because Johnson, although loyal to his king, was a republican in literature and was part of a great class that was beginning to assert its independence of social authority. This class strongly denied the divine right of patrons. Granted, for both men, the dictionary was a record of literacy in the language. And later, their work would become a record of how people used the language. But for Johnson, the dictionary was a sign of intellectual freedom. For Webster, the dictionary was a sign of national freedom (Scudder 243-4).

     The making of the 1828 American Dictionary was not easy. Personal tragedies tempered Webster’s enthusiasm with his newfound life’s purpose in lexicography. He was unsuccessful in obtaining government aid in his project. Webster did not help himself by asking assistance of President Madison in one paragraph and lecturing him in the next. Garnering subscribers was difficult, although garnering detractors was all too easy. Webster never considered that his approach might have been wrong (Morgan 168-72).

     Originally, Webster had modest goals. He wished to correct errors that earlier compilers had missed and add scientific words and other words new to the language. As he studied, he discovered that the field of etymology was almost virgin territory. Webster turned aside after finishing the first two letters of the alphabet to prepare a synopsis of the connections between the nearly twenty languages he had learned. For ten years, he worked on A Synopsis of Words in Twenty Languages. Some of its basic findings were published in 1807 in A Philosophical and Practical Grammar of the English Language (Morgan 175). In spite of the time and effort he put in the Synopsis, it was wrong and nonsensical. His inability to read the languages caused him to miss the important connotative qualities of the languages. He created connections where there were none.

     Central to Webster’s etymology was his insistence on the validity of the Biblical account of the origins of language. He felt language was “of the divine origin,” and that all languages had sprung from one source. The original words formed would be of equal antiquity. Webster felt that Noah preserved language along with the animals, and that the language was Chaldee. At the tower of Babel, the various languages were born. The idea affected his Synopsis, in that, looking for Chaldean roots, he placed too much emphasis on consonants and too little on vowels (and not enough on the similarities of words that contain radically different letters) (Moss 104-5).

     In June 1824, Webster left for Europe, not to return until June 1825. He worked in the “Bibliotheque du Roi” with its 800,000 books and 80,000 manuscripts. Webster headed to Cambridge in mid-September of 1824. He had wished to work at Oxford, but no one there answered his letters of request. People at Oxford had seen his etymological excursions. No one at either school responded favorably to his proposals for standardizing spelling and pronunciation in English. The Cambridge faculty received Webster with reserve, and work in the 100,000 volume library ran well. Webster miscalculated and finished the dictionary ahead of schedule.

     He failed to find a printer in England. London publishers had their hands full with similar projects and refused to take on such competition. Webster returned to America and six months later got the backing he needed. After more than a quarter century of study, Webster finished the 70,000 entry dictionary alone and by hand. He was among the last major lexicographers in English to work alone (Morgan 179-84).

     Webster’s trip to Europe seems to have been an exercise in prescriptivism to the extreme of folly. German was one of Webster’s languages. Why, being that close, did he not go to Germany and study with the philologists who had made such headway with the Great Vowel Shift and the Indo-European hypothesis? It could be that Webster knew all too well their work and that his findings were not legitimate. With Webster’s everpresent ego, could he admit that 10 years spent on his Synopsis was in vain? Would comparative philology dash his theories, and set his great dictionary so far back that it never would be finished? Would facing up to the latest findings of his day send him back to his country a laughingstock? Possibly.

     On March 3, Webster issued an uncharacteristically modest advertisement of the forthcoming release of the dictionary. He claimed the advantages of his work (while criticizing his rivals) included primarily words in common use, verb participles (something novel in dictionaries), terms in historical works, legal, technological, and scientific terms. He also pointed to his definitions, stating that the defining was the dictionary’s strongest part. William Fowler, Noah’s new son-in-law, helped with the proofreading; Denis Olmsted checked scientific terms; and James Gates Percival, poet and editor of the New Haven Herald, tried to help. Percival had studied Bopp, Grimm, and other philologists and challenged many of Noah’s etymologies. Percival wanted to track down all derivations of words before the work was published. Realizing the massive nature of such a project, Webster chose to publish rather than be accurate. Percival later attacked the etymologies and many of the spelling reforms. The other four main areas of the dictionary-- spelling, pronunciation, illustration, and definition-- however, continue as proper usage to this day (Warfel 343).

     In the 1828 Dictionary, Webster dropped many of the orthographic proposals. The spelling reforms he kept have become standard, i.e., jail for gaol, center for centre, labor for labour (Morgan 184-5). Webster omitted k after c; he wrote public, publication. But, he also continued to spell the old way traffick, almanack, frolick, and havock. He took the u out of our in honor. He reversed re into er. Some of the French-oriented spellings persisted, i.e., sepulchre, spectre. He gave some alternative spellings such as aker or acre, massacre or massacer. He also took out double consonants at the end of a word, depending on stress (Scudder 245-50).

     His illustrations were homely and common-sensical. He broke with prior lexicography which tended to draw all illustrations from literature. With his definitions, he believed that there was a primary or root sense of every word which led to all other definitions. Whenever it could be discovered, that sense should stand first in order. Here he surpassed Johnson, who randomly listed synonyms with definitions. He also included the subtle shades of meaning found between English and American usage of the same word. He also added new technical and non-technical words such as accompaniment, advisory, editorial, appreciate, and the only word that Noah Webster actually coined, demoralize (Morgan 185-6).

     Hezekiah Howe began printing An American Dictionary of the English Language on May 8, 1827, finishing in November 1828. The format was 2,000 pages (1,000 in each volume) and sold for $20 per set. A few Bostonians did not like it, and most Southerners did not care for it. A few Britishers scorned it, but the Dictionary met with widespread critical approval. Congress adopted it as its standard, along with various American courts. Many foreign governments declared it their official dictionary for English. The work sold best in England, where more than half of the original press run went. And English edition sold 3,000 copies. An American scholar had set the standard for the English language in England. German-cast type notwithstanding, it was an entirely American enterprise that bristled with nationalistic pride (Morgan 186).

     Webster’s dictionaries have outsold through their continuing editions every book in the English language, except the Bible. After Webster’s death in 1843, G. & C. Merriam Company bought the publishing rights and unsold copies of the 1841 edition. Chauncey Goodrich edited and improved the work to produce a one volume edition in 1847 that sold for $6. It sold so well that when the copyright was renewed, the Webster family was paid $250,000. The 1859 edition introduced illustrations. The 1864 edition superceded the 1847, as Webster’s Unabridged (edited by Noah Porter). In 1900, an extensive supplement of words appeared in the Webster’s New International (coming to market in 1909). By 1934, there was the Webster’s New International Dictionary, Second Edition (Morgan 202-5). And of course in 1961, there appeared the Webster’s New International Dictionary, Third Edition.

     In assessing the work of Noah Webster, one must ask, was he a good lexicographer? Yes, he gave a young country a place to start from, as far as language is concerned. Without a “King’s English” to copy, Americans were sorely lacking a “prestige dialect.” Rising Americans needed to know that what they were saying, and the way they were saying it, was correct. Like the ladies targeted by Table Alphabeticall, Americans needed the tools to converse adequately in polite circles.

     But Webster created a two-class system among dictionary readers. He did so well at informing people how they should communicate that descriptive lexicographers would afterwards be looked at as corrupters of the language. Thanks to Noah Webster, there are those people who go to Webster’s dictionaries looking for acceptability of language, and those who go to the Oxford English Dictionary and Webster’s Third Edition to learn about “all” of the language.

     Webster was not the most progressive of dictionary makers. But right or wrong, Webster was setting a standard for English that was an American English. Within the serious study of language, Webster was an opinionated, arrogant autodidact, which may be what the average American of his day needed.

III. The Making of the Oxford English Dictionary

     The Oxford English Dictionary was made possible by three new principles established for nineteenth century lexicography. First, Kersey and Bailey had widened the old glossaries into general inclusion works. Second, Johnson had systematically and successfully used quotations to illustrate and justify definitions. Third, Richardson introduced the principle of historical illustration (JAH Murray vii).

     The OED grew out of a project of the Philological Society, suggested by Bishop R. C. Trench in the mid-1850’s. The Society wished to investigate the structures, affinities, and history of the language. The Society’s word search was so successful that a new dictionary was possible (Mathews 64). Herbert Coleridge became its General Editor in November 1859 (Mathews 65-6). However, he died at age 31 (Sutcliffe 53). F. J. Furnivall succeeded him as Editor, and secured quotations from several sources (Mathews 66-7). Furnivall wanted Dr. Henry Sweet to edit the work, but James A. H. Murray had already proven himself one of the most capable members of Furnivall’s team (Sutcliffe 54).

     Henry Sweet approached Dr. Bartholomew Price, Secretary to the Delegates of the Clarendon Press of Oxford University, with the proposal that the work was half sub-edited and ready for press. The Delegates repeatedly wished to see samples; and Friedrich Max Muller, Oxford’s first professor of Comparative Philology, examined Murray’s samples extensively (E Murray 83, 149-53). On March 1, 1879, the agreement was signed between the Vice Chancellor of Oxford on behalf of the Press, Murray, and Furnivall on behalf of the Philological Society. Clarendon would print the dictionary; Murray would edit the dictionary; and the Society would donate its gathered materials. Murray’s goal was 7,000 pages in ten years (Sutcliffe 56-7).

     With few notable exceptions, the original material that the Society had been so protective of, Murray found best fit for a bonfire. Although the title page states that the work is based “mainly on the materials collected by the Philological Society,” only one-tenth of the old material was used (E Murray 168-70).

     Murray’s volunteer readers began sending 1,000 slips a day. Most of the words received were unusual ones, leaving the common words ignored (Sutcliffe 57). By the end of the project, the OED had a base of five million citations (Landau 69).

     For the first two years, it seemed as though the Delegates ignored Murray (Sutcliffe 57). In those early years, Murray spent much of his time organizing and instructing readers, dispatching books and slips and acknowledging their return, chasing the tardy, answering questions about their work, and courteously answering irritatingly stupid questions from the volunteers upon whose goodwill he depended (E Murray 180-1).

     During the preliminary years, Murray tackled two major areas: pronunciation and the limits of the language.

     Murray spent nearly three years on pronunciation. His first question would be “What is current usage?” Was he to take pronunciation from northerners or southerners, Cockneys or Oxford Dons, singers or orators? How many varying pronunciations should be given? Murray felt that the purpose of the Dictionary was not to declare one “right” or “wrong.” The Dictionary existed to record facts, and the fact was that usage varied for reasons found in the language’s history. Murray said:

Language is mobile and liable to change, and . . . a very large number of words have two or more pronunciations current . . . and giving life and variety to language . . . . [I]t is a free country, and a man may call a vase a vawse, a vahse, a vaze, or a vase, as he pleases. And why should he not? We do not all think alike, walk alike, dress alike, write alike, or dine alike; why should not we use our liberty in speech also, so long as the purpose of speech, to be intelligible, and its grace, are not interfered with? (E Murray 189)

     Murray decided to give all possible pronunciations where several were current. Murray sometimes asked friends’ opinions and sometimes used analogy. Murray had to do his best and go on (E Murray 189-91).

     He disappointed the spelling reformers because he saw none of their systems as able to serve as a scientific guide. The method Murray finally settled on met little criticism, balancing the conflicting claims of precision and intelligibility (E Murray 189-91).

     Murray also considered the question, “What is the English language?” He also asked the question, “How many words are there in the language of Englishmen?” To this he replied:

Of some Englishmen? Or of all Englishmen? Is it all that all Englishmen speak, or some of what some Englishmen speak? Does it include the English of Scotland and Ireland, the speech of British Englishmen, and American Englishmen, of Australian Englishmen, South African Englishmen, and of the Englishmen in India? (E Murray 193-4)

     Murray wanted, as much as possible, to keep the etymology of every word based in the “immediate feeders of the English language”; Early English, Anglo-Saxon, Norman French, and Latin (Sutcliffe 56).

     In his introduction to the first volume of the Dictionary, Murray states that the vocabulary of a living language is not a fixed quantity with definite limits. He writes:

That vast aggregate of words and phrases which constitutes the Vocabulary of English-speaking men presents, to the mind that endeavors to grasp it as a definite whole, the aspect of one of those nebulous masses familiar to the astronomer, in which a clear and unmistakable nucleus shades off on all sides, through zones of decreasing brightness, to a dim marginal film that seems to end nowhere, but to lose itself imperceptibly in the surrounding darkness. So the English Vocabulary contains a nucleus or central mass of many thousand words whose “Anglicity” is unquestioned; some of them only literary, some literary and colloquial, the great majority at once literary and colloquial,-- they are the Common Words of the language. But they are linked on every side with other words which are less and less entitled to this appellation, and which pertain ever more and more distinctly to the domain of local dialect, of the slang and cant of “sets” and classes, of the peculiar technicalities of trades and processes, of the scientific terminology common to all civilized nations, of the actual languages of other lands and peoples. And there is absolutely no defining line in any direction: the circle of the English language has a well-defined centre but no discernible circumference (JAH Murray xxvi).

     Foreign and scientific terms enter through the written word, slang through colloquial use. Technical and dialect terms come in through speech and literature. Slang touches on one side the technical terminology of trades and occupations and on the other side dialectal words. Dialects pass into foreign languages and scientific terminology has links with both foreign languages and with technology. “It is not possible to fix the point at which the ‘English Language’ stops, along any of these diverging lines” (E Murray 193-4).

     Murray’s position marked a radical swing from Webster’s extreme prescriptivism to an equally opposite descriptivism. The importance of this stance and its effect on modern lexicography cannot be overstated. Murray’s position marked the return of lexicographical inclusiveness. Where many authorities in the dictionary industry, including the Delegates of Clarendon Press, still viewed dictionary-making as a commercial venture, Murray’s realization of the English language in an increasingly smaller world caused him to see the pivotal stance of the OED. The Oxford English Dictionary could become another commercially accepted, generally used dictionary that would perpetuate the prescriptivism of Webster, or it could become one of the most authoritative works extant.

     Murray was in the right place at the right time. Cawdrey, Bailey, Johnson, and Webster had set limits for that sort of reference work, and what its potential was. Dictionaries had achieved a respectability among their readers. The German philologists had opened new worlds for the language scholar, and there had been time for their work to be refined. If a major scholastic dictionary were to be created, then was the time to do it. The Delegates of the Oxford University Press were not so perceptive of this opportunity as Murray was; but he still changed lexicography in his day by creating an inclusive, rather than exclusive, dictionary. He had to drag the Oxford University Press along with him.

     The original scheme called for Murray’s work to exceed Webster’s by 4 to 1. Murray found his work sometimes reached a ratio of 10 to 1. By 1883, the first volume was already in proofs. Dr. Jowett, of the Delegacy, wanted no words that were coined after 1875. He also advocated limited use of newspapers, scientific terms, and slang. He also wanted the ommission of “Aardvark” and “Aardwolf” from the Dictionary. In January 1884, Part I, A-Ant, was published in 5,000 copies. The first 352 pages took five years to produce. The Delegates were not happy with the results (Sutcliffe 61-2). Renegotiations meant the Delegates wanted the Editor and staff to guarantee an output of 704 pages per year. Henry Bradley wrote a long and discerning review of Murray’s work which eventually gained Bradley an editorship with the OED (Sutcliffe 62).

     In 1885, Henry Lyttelton Gell became the Secretary of the Delegates, and an unsympathetic gadfly of the OED (E Murray 250-1). From a business perspective, the Dictionary was a failure. The effect of delay of sales was serious (E Murray 251). Subscribers were disgruntled over the delay in their returns. New subscribers were reluctant to tie up money they might never recoup. By 1897, the project was in debt 51,452 pounds, and the debt was growing at a rate of 5,000 pounds a year (E Murray 252).

     When Gell was in office, there were critics who insisted that with “a little more energy and better organization” the Dictionary could be finished in no time. During Gell’s tenure, two major crises threatened the completion of the project (Sutcliffe 92). Only A-Ant was in print when Gell assumed control. Anta-Battening appeared in November 1885, Battenlie-Bozzom in March 1887, and Bra-Byzen in June 1888. Volume I stood completed, nine years after work had begun in earnest. Gell was none too happy, and appointed Henry Bradley to assist (Sutcliffe 93).

     Bradley’s help did not speed things along because B proved to be so formidable. The Delegates saw no reason to rejoice when Part III was published in 1887. Gell saw Murray as a bottleneck, and made Bradley an independent editor, giving him E. In 1891, both editors produced their allotted parts: Closa-Consigner and E-Every. Gell and Furnivall agreed that Murray’s perfectionism was a threat to survival, and that his standards must be lowered. The Delegates agreed to a compromise. It would be between “what is theoretically best and what is practically possible.” Murray felt the compromise was a defeat for Gell (Sutcliffe 94-5). During this time, the making of the Dictionary was a time of overwork, ill health, and frustration. D had to be negotiated, Bradley had conquered E, but F was nearly the end. Bywater had discovered that both editors were exceeding Webster by 8 to 1. That rate would bring the Dictionary from 8,400 pages to 12,800. The Delegates threatened to suspend the project indefinitely (Sutcliffe 95).

     Both editors issued a challenge for anyone to do better, and keep the quality. Murray expressed that it would be better to abort the work than to see the scholarship suffer (Sutcliffe 95-6). Neither the Oxford University Press, nor the Delegates, had realized the intent of their Editor. Under Murray’s guidance, the OED was a work of scholarship. The OED could, in no way, be considered a commercial venture, as the Delegates believed. The Dictionary was descriptive scholarship for the sake of descriptive scholarship.

     Murray remarked:

Only those who have made the experiment know the bewilderment with which an editor or sub-editor, after he has apportioned the quotations for such a word as above . . . among 20, 30, or 40 groups, and furnished each of these with a provisional definition, spreads them out on a table or on the floor where he can obtain a general survey of the whole, and spends hour after hour in shifting them about like pieces on a chess-board, striving to find in the fragmentary evidence of an incomplete historical record, such a sequence of meanings as may form a logical chain of development. Sometimes the quest seems hopeless; recently, for example, the word “art” utterly baffled me for several days: something had to be done with it: something was done and put in type; but the renewed consideration of it in print, with the greater facility of reading and comparison which this afforded, led to the entire pulling to pieces and reconstruction of the edifice, extending to several columns of type . . . those who think that such work can be hurried, or that anything can accelerate it, except more brain power brought to bear on it, had better try (Landau 36).

     A public outcry at the possibility of losing the Dictionary caused the Delegates to reverse their intentions (E Murray 278). It was a turning point for the work. From then on, Gell had to impress upon the accountant and any unsympathetic Delegates that the work was not a commercial proposition, but a work of scholarship (Sutcliffe 96-7). Both Editors and Delegates finally agreed upon a realistic rate of production. The editors would not produce 700 pages per year, but 64 pages per quarter (E Murray 280).

     The 20th Century saw changes in personnel of the OED. In 1897, the Delegates invited William Craigie to join the team as a third editor (Sutcliffe 97). The editors being scattered did not speed production. In 1901, two complete volumes appeared. Bradley produced Volume IV, while Murray published Volume V (the last to appear for seven years). Though sales were disappointing, prestige was growing. The OED was being used and quoted as ultimate authority by law courts, by Parliament, and by the President of the United States (Sutcliffe 155). In 1913, Murray felt he would see the Dictionary done by 1916. However, his health failed. Dr. Murray got as far as Turndown. He died of heart failure on July 26, 1915 (E Murray 309-12). Bradley was working through S when C. T. Onions joined the team in 1919. By then, the Delegates had ceased to intervene. They had realized that their editors were not fools; it was the language that was insane (Sutcliffe 154). Lexicographical comprehension seemed to defy reason. World War I slowed the progress toward completion. Bradley died in May of 1923. Since Craigie and Onions could not devote uninterrupted time to the project, the last part did not appear until the beginning of 1928. Craigie and Onions published the Supplement, Introduction, and Bibliography in 1933 (E Murray 312).

     The 20th Century also saw changes in the format of the OED. In 1971, Robert Burchfield produced a Compact OED (complete with magnifying glass), which reduced thirteen volumes to two. In 1972, the first volume of the Supplement was published. In 1976, the second volume appeared (Sutcliffe 279, 289). Plans are underway to put the entire OED and Supplement on-line (Landau 290). And just out on the market is the OED, 2nd Edition, prepared by J. A. Simpson and E. S. C. Weiner. It is a compilation of the Supplement into the main dictionary, with new terms (such as yuppification) included.

     As mentioned earlier, the work of Murray signaled a return to descriptivism. The whole of lexicography and its audience did not swing in that direction (as evidenced by reaction to Webster’s New International Dictionary, Third Edition and the appearance of the American Heritage Dictionary). But for serious scholars of the language, it presented a record of the language as it was. The OED included “the plain or colorful or vulgar or ungrammatical” elements of working-class and regional speech as it appeared in Bronte’ or Dickens. Father’s Day was listed capitalized. The label “slang” was used freely for phrases like behind the eight ball. The role of the lexicographer was to record as objectively as possible the unchanging elements of language, but also the changing, whether they be socially beneficial or harmful, politically popular or not, or linguistically regular or irregular (Burchfield 18-20).

     The OED’s “Historical Basis” has been instrumental to keeping it alive. Each word is not only described in all its meanings, but also in its original sense (complete with exemplary use in poetry or prose). The OED lists each sense of the word from its appearance to the close of the 19th Century (Roberts 150).

     In the 2nd Edition, it continues to do so. It defines words that have become part of our everyday existence, i.e., perestroika. The OED also marked the emergence of lexicographical scholarship for the sake of knowledge, and not for profit. The Oxford English Dictionary achieved greatness through its definitions, pronunciations, etymologies, and illustrations, not because of its commercial value.

Conclusion

     What is to be gained from looking at three centuries of dictionary-making, and whether the lexicographers were trying to shape their language? How is an understanding of the English language enhanced by studying the work done by lexicographers?

     First, it helps the student of English get a larger view of the language. To not know the history of the language is to remain ignorant of its hidden complexities and idiosyncrasies. By looking at the long development of dictionary-making in the English language, the scholar sees the ascendancy of a world power, its language, and its influence on other cultures. The scholar see the Latin of the Roman Empire decline while the vernaculars emerge. The student can trace a search for linguistic orthodoxy among developing vernacular languages. Even as recently as Noah Webster in the nineteenth century, the debate continues over the “official” nature of English in American schools. And political agendas figure into the development of language.

     Second, lexicographical study helps the modern student grasp the meanings of earlier writers. The student, surveying dictionaries of different periods, watches the language change before his eyes. By consulting Cawdrey or Johnson, the student sees the text come alive before him. The classical writers are no longer dry and tedious, but full of life.

     And, third, a study of lexicography breaks idols. It is all too simple to look something up in the dictionary and assume it carries the weight of Holy Writ. Many want to believe that if the dictionary says it, the “that’s the way it is.” A study of the flesh-and-blood people who try to sort out the English language lets us realize that language is a very flawed, very human experience. Possibly, some (if not all) of the resentment toward Webster’s Third and the American Heritage Dictionary was a case of a prescriptive audience encountering a descriptive lexicographical work. Dr. Gove’s lexicography may have been more sophisticated than that of his audience.

     The English dictionary, in all its forms, is, in conclusion, an important part of the modern language experience. It can serve as a bringer of new knowledge to its reader, verifier of proper usage to the unsure, codifier of what we consider our language to be, and matrix of our greatest literature.

Works Cited

Addison, Joseph. The Spectator. London: Longmans, Green, & Co., 1898.

Bloomfield, Leonard. Language. New York: Holt, 1933.

Burchfield, Robert W. The Oxford English Dictionary and the State of the Language. Washington: Library of Congress, 1988.

Cawdrey, Robert. A Table Alphabeticall. London: I.R. for Edmund Weauer, 1604.

Coote, Edmund. English Schoole-maister. London: Widow Orwin, 1596.

Emerson, Oliver F. The History of the English Language. New York: MacMillan, 1915.

Harp, Richard L. Dr. Johnson’s Critical Vocabulary. Lanham, New York, London: University Press of America, 1986.

Johnson, Samuel. A Dictionary of the English Language. London: W. Strahan, 1755.

Kersey, John. A New English Dictionary. London: J. Wilde, 1708.

Landau, Sidney I. Dictionaries: The Art and Craft of Lexicography. New York: Scribner, 1984.

Mathews, M.M. A Survey of English Dictionaries. New York: Russell & Russell, 1966.

Morgan, John S. Noah Webster. New York: Mason/Charter, 1975.

Moss, Richard J. Noah Webster. Boston: Twayne, 1984.

Murray, Sir James Augustus Henry, et al. The Oxford English Dictionary. Oxford: Clarendon, 1970.

Murray, Katherine Maude Elisabeth. Caught in the Web of Words. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1977.

Pyles, Thomas. Words & Ways of American English. New York: Random House, 1952.

Roberts, William H. and Gregoire Turgeon. About Language: A Reader for Writers. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1986.

Scudder, Horace E. Noah Webster. New York, London: Chelsea House, 1981.

Sledd, James and Wilma R. Ebbitt. Dictionaries and "That" Dictionary. Glenview: Scott, Foresman, and Co., 1962.

Sutcliffe, Peter. The Oxford University Press: An Informal History. Oxford: Clarendon, 1978.

Warfel, Harry R. Noah Webster: Schoolmaster to America. New York: The MacMillan Co., 1936.

Watkins, W.B.C. Johnson and English Poetry before 1660. New York: Gordian, 1965.

Yung, Kai Kin. Samuel Johnson, 1709-84. London: Herbert, 1984.  

Appendix

Dictionaries often record shifts in the denotative and connotative value of a word. For example, the Oxford English Dictionary lists eight different ways that the word genius has been used:

1) a. With reference to classical pagan belief: The tutelary god or attendant spirit allotted to every person at his birth, to govern his fortunes and determine his character, and finally to conduct him out of the world; also, the tutelary and controlling spirit similarly connected with a place, an institution, etc.

b. This spirit viewed as propitiated by festivities; hence, one’s appetite.

c. (“a person’s”) “good, evil genius”: the two mutually opposed spirits (in Christian language “angels”) by whom every person was supposed to be attended throughout his life. Hence applied “transf.” to a person who powerfully influences for good or evil the character, conduct, or fortunes of another.

d. In astrological use the word survived, with some notion of its original sense, passing into a symbolical expression for the combination of sidereal influences represented in a person’s horoscope.

e. The quasi-mythological personification of something immaterial (e.g., of a virtue, a custom, an institution), esp. as portrayed in painting or sculpture. Hence “transf.” a person or thing fit to be taken as an embodied type of (some abstract idea).

2) A demon or spiritual being in general. Now chiefly in pl. “genii” (the “sing.” being usually replaced by GENIE), as a rendering of Arab. “jinn,” the collective name of a class of spirits (some good, some evil) supposed to interfere powerfully in human affairs.

3) a. Of persons: Characteristic disposition; inclination; bent, turn, or temper of mind.

b. With reference to a nation, age, etc.: Prevalent feeling, opinion, sentiment, or taste; distinctive character, or spirit.

c. Of a language, law, or institution: Prevailing character or spirit, general drift, characteristic method or procedure.

d. With reference to a place: The body of associations connected with, or inspirations that may be derived from it.

e. Of material things, diseases, etc.: The natural character, inherent constitution or tendency.

4) Natural ability or capacity: quality of mind, the special endowments which fit a man for his peculiar work. (Now only with mixture of sense 5.)

5) (Only in “sing.”) Native intellectual power of an exalted type, such as is attributed to those who are esteemed greatest in any department of art, speculation, or practice; instinctive and extraordinary capacity for imaginative creation, original thought, invention, or discovery. Often contrasted with “talent.”

6) Applied to a person.

a. With qualifying adj.: One who has great, “little,” etc. ‘genius’ (sense 4) or natural ability. Also, one who has a ‘genius’ (sense 3) or disposition of a specified kind.

b. A person endowed with ‘genius’ (in sense 5). (Now only “geniuses” in pl.)

7) “phr.” // genius loci, the presiding deity or spirit (see sense 1); but often used in the sense of 3d.

8) “attrib.” and “Comb.”, as “genius school”; “genius-gifted,” “genii-haunted” adjs.; genius-born a., born of genius; genius-chamber.