The Dictionary.

Horowhenua Chronicle, 17 March 1910, Page 1

The Dictionary.

— fr.. An anonymous writer remarks that t-lie dictionary was once described by an agitated Lidy who was holding her first "at home'-' after undertaking tlve responsibilities of matrimony as "such a fine book to look words up in." This was a somewhat obvious appreciation of tlie universal book, but it really seems as if the volume has a more important bearing upon the history of literature than is generally attributed to it. Tho latest Browning biography states that when the poet decided upon adopting literature as a profession be deliberately set himself to the reading and digestion of Johnson's dictionary. Tn the light of this information Mrs Sutherland Orr remarks : "We cannot be surprised to realise that he displayed so ..great n mastery of words and so deep a knowledge of the capacities of the English language." Chatham confesses to the same literary prediction, and there is, of courso, always the gentleman who picked up the dictionary as casual reading matter and only took objection to the shortness of the stories it contained. But nowadays tho dictionary is really a readable book. Robert Louis Stevenson once advised writers to read a dictionary occasionally in order to give freshness to their vocabulary, 4tiul the advice was eminently sound. Statisticians are fond of telling us of the limited number of words which are habitually used by various clases of the population, and their figures show that even educated people are often poorly aconainteil with tho resources and richness of their mother tongue. To this must be ntributed the growing use of slang anil the frequent misuse of words Ono pooi overworked word is made to do the work of the halfdozen which the language provides for tho purpose. The commonest words are in some respects the most interesting. Their meanings and aiibmeanings are innumerable ; one use shades off into another, and the tracing of the gradual development of a single word from the bumble beginnings of a small sapling to the growth of a mighty tree is one of the most fascinating studies possible to those who acquire the "dictionary i'evor." Curiously, despite the expression applied to the verbose man that "lie has eaten a. dictionary," the student of this particular form of liutrature is generally a man of few words and of simple language.