Fixing Babel: An Historical Anthology of Applied English Lexicography

657 Pages·2016·7.47 MB·English

by  Rebecca Shapiro

Fixing Babel

Fixing Babel
An Historical Anthology of
Applied Lexicography
Edited by
Rebecca Shapiro
Foreword by
Jack Lynch
Published by Bucknell University Press
Copublished by The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc.
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Copyright © 2017 by Rebecca Shapiro
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any
electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems,
without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote
passages in a review.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Available
ISBN 978-1-61148-809-8 (cloth : alk. paper)
ISBN 978-1-61148-811-1 (pbk. : alk. paper)
ISBN 978-1-61148-810-4 (electronic)
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American
National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library
Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.
Printed in the United States of America
CONTENTS
Foreword by Jack Lynch ix
Acknowledgments xi
Introduction xiii
Editorial Method xxxiii
List of Abbreviations xxxvii
List of Illustrations xxxix
William Clark
A Dictionarie in English and Latine for Children, and Yong
Beginners (1602) 1
Robert Cawdrey
A Table Alphabeticall, 2nd ed. (1609) 5
[I. B.] John Bullokar
An English Expositor: Teaching the Interpretation of the Hardest
Words Vsed in Our Language (1616) 11
Henry Cockeram
The English Dictionarie: Or, an Interpreter of Hard English
Words (1623) 17
Edmund Coote
The English Schoole-Master, 17th ed. (1627) 23
Thomas Blount
Glossographia: Or a Dictionary (1656) 31
Edward Phillips
The New World of English Words: Or, a General Dictionary (1658) 44
John Ray
A Collection of English Words, Not Generally Used (1674) 67
Elisha Coles
An English Dictionary (1676) 79
Anonymous
Gazophylacium Anglicanum (1689) 87
Abel Boyer
The Royal Dictionary (1699) 93
[J. K.] John Kersey
A New English Dictionary (1702) 105
John Kersey [J. K. Philobibl.]
The New World of Words: Or, Universal English Dictionary, 6th ed.,
(1706) revised by John Kersey 113
Anonymous
Glossographia Anglicana Nova: Or, a Dictionary (1707) 116
John Kersey [Philobibl.]
Dictionarium Anglo-Britannicum (1708) 120
Nathan Bailey
An Universal Etymological Dictionary (1721) 124
Thomas Dyche
The Spelling English Dictionary (1725) 136
B. N. [Benjamin Norton] Defoe
A Compleat English Dictionary (1735) 141
Nathan Bailey
Dictionarium Britannicum, 2nd ed. (1736) 143
Thomas Dyche and William Pardon
A New General English Dictionary, 2nd ed. (1737) 165
Samuel Johnson
The Plan of a Dictionary of the English Language (1747) 171
Benjamin Martin
Lingua Britannica Reformata: Or, A New English Dictionary (1749) 201
Samuel Johnson
A Dictionary of the English Language (1755) 214
Joseph Nicol Scott
A New Universal Etymological English Dictionary (1755) 243
Samuel Johnson
A Dictionary of the English Language . . . Abstracted (1756) 253
James Buchanan
Linguæ Britannicæ Vera Pronunciato: Or, A New English
Dictionary (1757) 257
William Johnston
A Pronouncing and Spelling Dictionary (1764) 273
John Trusler
The Difference between Words, Esteemed Synonymous, in the
English Language (1766) 279
William Kenrick
The New Dictionary of the English Language (1773) 287
James Barclay
A Complete and Universal English Dictionary on a New Plan (1774) 300
John Ash
The New and Complete Dictionary of the English Language (1775) 307
William Perry
The Royal Standard English Dictionary (1775) 312
John Walker
A Dictionary of the English Language (1775) 325
Thomas Sheridan
A General Dictionary of the English Language (1780) 353
Francis Grose
A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue (1785) 375
John Walker
A Critical Pronouncing Dictionary and Expositor of the English
Language (1791) 384
Hester Lynch Piozzi
British Synonymy (1794) 409
Noah Webster
A Compendious Dictionary of the English Language (1806) 418
Noah Webster
An American Dictionary of the English Language (1828) 471
Dictionaries with Their Complete Titles 555
Bibliography 567
Index 582
About the Author 000

Foreword
THE crucial era in the development of English-language lexicography
runs from the publication of the first monolingual English dictionaries
at the beginning of the seventeenth century, through the release of Noah
Webster’s American Dictionary in 1828. At the beginning of this period, we
see the tentative efforts to define English words and to survey the vernacular
as a systematic whole; by the end, we are in an age of sophisticated
meditations on scientific etymology, linguistic prescriptivism, and the
relationship of language to nation.
When lexicographers want to discuss these topics today, they write
for their professional peers in refereed journals and monographs. Before
the nineteenth century, though, no learned periodicals were devoted to
linguistics. The discussions therefore took place at the beginnings of
their dictionaries: in the prefaces, introductions, dedicatory epistles,
advertisements, and addresses to the reader. Front matter is where
lexicographers staked their intellectual claims, justified their methods, and
explained the difficulties they faced. It is where they drew attention to the
most novel, innovative, and controversial elements of their dictionaries,
and positioned themselves in relation to their precursors and rivals. Some
of these prefaces are theoretical, some resolutely practical; some anticipate
modern thinking about the language, while others are remembered only
as embarrassing digressions from the mainstream of scholarship. Some
appeared in works that never attracted a significant audience, while others
found their way into virtually every literate household. Read together, they
constitute a substantial and important body of primary documents on the
development of linguistic thought.
And yet, for all their importance, these prefaces and introductions
can be surprisingly difficult to find. Most have never been reprinted. Of the
works collected here, only Samuel Johnson’s Plan and preface have been
treated in a scholarly edition. And never have these writings been brought
together in a single volume. In Fixing Babel: An Historical Anthology of
Applied Lexicography, therefore, Rebecca Shapiro provides authoritative
and annotated texts of more than three dozen of these documents.