CAUGHT UP IN A DICTIONARY

New Zealand Listener, Volume 25, Issue 649, 7 December 1951, Page 10

CAUGHT UP IN A DICTIONARY

Is

G. R.

Gilbert

BELIEVE Samuel Johnson was responsible. for the first English dictionary. Before that, people spelt more or less as the spirit moved them, and good luck to them, too. I feel that Dr. Johnson’s efforts in starting something which has now standardised the spelling of the language were largely misplaced. The dictionary has placed our writing in chains-we can no longer express ourselves in our spelling. I know, for myself, that my spelling, when writing unguardedly, is decidedly irregular and is very expressive of my emotional state. But, of course, I have to tidy all that up before I can send it to anybody and I have to use a dictionary. Once I used a modest pocket Oxford dictionary, It was handy, small enough »to have on the table beside me, and seemed to contain all the words 7 ever wanted to spell. But when my father-in-law came down to live with us he brought his own dictionary with him. It was a book he swore by-all other _ dictionaries he maintained were inaccurate, ignorant, and misleading when compared with it. "You use my dictionary and you'll never go wrong," Papa said to me when he found me searching through my pocket Oxford. "Those Oxford dictionaries,"~ he continued contemptuously. "They're falsifying the whole English language!" Papa spoke in the tones of profound conviction. I admit I was im- | pressed. If I had to use a dictionary then I would rather use the best. "What about the size of ‘your dictionary, though," I said rather weakly. "The bigger @the dictionary, the bet- _ ter it is." replied Papa firmly. "You'll a

find everything you want in my Webster’s. ‘TV'll bring it in." "~~

So he brought it in to me. First, he removed the typewriter’ from the table to the floor and pushed the paper to — one side, "There you are," he said, laying the enormous volume down’ reverently, He smacked the cover with his hand. "Everything you'll ever want." "Thank you," I said, as Papa went out, taking my pocket Oxford with him. "You won’t need this, now that you’ve got a proper dictionary," were Papa’s parting words. WELL-by stacking the Webster’s in the far corner of my small table I managed to make room for the typewriter again. But, now, whenever I have spelling difficulties-which is pretty often-I have to place the typewriter en the floor and spread the dictionary. out over the table top, There isn’t room for the typewriter and a book which measures a foot by eighteen inches, and is eight inches through. And I find that I’m not getting so much writing done now-but I’m spending far more time reading, The fact is, that once I have made way for the dic-. tionary by placing everything else on the floor I feel disinclined to return to the status quo. Besides, I find Web- ster’s Dictionary of absorbing ‘interest. It is not only a dictionary-you could almost call it a complete reference library. I also. find it comforting. It is leather bound, with the leather.wearing slightly on the corners, the front cover has come adrift alittle and requires. careful haan and best of all, it has, that wonderful soporific smell that comes from old books. Browsing through this magnificent. old» volume-2300 pages-I begin to feel —

like the lotus-eaters, Time passes, work should be done, but I drift lazily from page _ to page discovering strange words and stranger illus-trations-for the dictionary has thousands of steel engravings . scattered through it. | WILL admit it. Webster’s International Dictionary of the English Language, published in 1902, has become my drug, my happy escape from toil. There is something for every mood-if I. ever determine — to search immediately for a word I am always tempted into a hundred byways, I stray and am lost for hours.

There are facsimiles of the Great Seals of all the United States and Territories, I have studied: those « closely. Then come brightly coloured representations ‘of fhe Flags of All Nations. I view these with a gentle melancholy, for SQ many of them are changed, indeed, many of them will never wave again Pi ea in the romantic past as T gaze dream ly at ‘the flag of .the Orange Free’ State, or of Serbia or Montenégro. -** © A little’ further on" there is a steel engraving of the great man himselfNoah ‘Webster. He ‘looks a charming little man and he holds a roll of parchment in his’ hands » But before I reach the dictionary proper, where the words are, I have to outflank a number of articles including a Short Life of Dr. Webster, a Short History of the English Language, a

Guide to Pronunciation (with illustra. tions of the vocal chords in the act df pronouncing vowels) and a list: of amended spellings, none. of whieh, I am glad to say, appear to have been adopted. It is no wonder that I rarely begin. searching for the word I want until an hour or so has passed, HE dictionary ptoper is a mine containing the most wonderful ores to me. The other day, being puzzled as to whether the word inditement had an "e" following the first "t,’ I consulted the Webster's. Some time later-after I had found deoppilation, a word attributed to Sir Thomas Browne and meaning "removal of whatever stops up the. passages," after I had inadvertently turned far too many pages over and discovered smell-feast, meaning "a feast at which the guests were ‘to subsist on the odors of the food alone." I pulled myself together and managed to find inditement with a minimum loss of time. But. then I strayed again. I turned back towards the end of the dictionary and spent a pleasant half hour browsing through the hundred or so pages of steel engravings of every possible subject. I lingered over the proofreading symbols and their application, I examined the. explanatory pages of musical notation, I stared at the anatomical drawings of two graceful skeletons, I gave time to consider the section illustrating "ships and nautical affairs." Then, right at the end of the book I discovered for the first time, a couple of pages of advertisements for this, The Australasian Edition cf Webster’s International Dictionary. There were one of two well-known names listed, together with the testimonials of their owners, The Honourable W. Pember Reeves said: "The more I try the new Webster the better I like it. Complete without ~ being cumbrous, compact yet in no way scanty, the International Dictionary is both sufficiently scientific for the schdlar and handy enough for the hurried man of business. . . " Well-there you have it. That is what was thought in 1902. And; in the main, I agreed with Pember Reeves, except I considered that he must have been a very big man, physically, if he considered the dictionary. to be "complete (continued on next page) {

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without being cumbrous." Or, maybe, he had a bigger table than the one I work on, Anyway, at this stage I closed the Webster's with a sigh. The time had come for it to be stacked back into its place again. I must get back to work. And so, back I went to the typewriter. . . And there I stuck, with my fingers on the keys. For the life of me I couldn’t remember whether Inditement had an "e" following the first "t" or not. . . I took it as a sign that I should stop work for the morning altogether. I decided to go right out and invite my father-in-law to a "smell-feast." Anyway, it was a word from his own dictionary-he couldn’t make any ob-| jection to it, could he? rae