THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE DICTIONARY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

(or Scottish "murgeon"), bodily antic grimace; and then it is not a long step to the original use, "a clownish, covetous person." Booth derived the term from the Anglo-Saxon "ceorl," churl, and "modigan," minded, that is "churl-minded."

The reference to definitions made above invites further consideration of the difficulty of the art, so little appreciated or understood, of framing them, an art which, as exercised by the Fleet Street Lexicographer, displayed, according to his world-renowned biographer, "such astonishing proofs of astuteness of intellect and precision of language as indicate a genius of the highest rank.” For, continues Boswell, "they who will make the experiment of trying how they can define a few words, of whatever nature, will soon be satisfied of the unquestionable justice of this observation, which I can assure my readers is founded upon study, and upon communication with more minds than my own." Again, apropos of the synonym we have the much-bequizzed definition of network as "anything reticulated or decussated at equal distances, with interstices between the intersections"-a definition that prompted Goldsmith to say that if Johnson were to write a fable about little fishes he would make them all talk like great whales.

The following anecdote, given on the authority of Mrs. Piozzi, is amusing and instructive, as well as to the point: "As Dr. Johnson was walking along the Strand, a gentleman stept out of some neighboring tavern, with his napkin in his hand and no hat, and stopping him as civilly as he could: 'I beg your pardon, sir, but you are Dr. Johnson, I believe.' 'Yes, sir.' 'We have a wager depending on your reply: Pray, sir, is it irréparable or irrepairable that one should say?' 'The last, I think, sir,' answered Dr. Johnson, for the adjective* ought to follow the verb; but you had better consult my dictionary than me, for that was the result of more thought than you will give me time for.'"

Even in his day his work demonstrated how impossible it is for any single scholar to make a satisfactory comprehensive dictionary. The answer of Johnson to the lady who asked him how he came to make a certain bad definition was quaintly frank: "Ignorance, madam, pure ignorance!" In a dialog reported by Boswell, Adams asked Johnson how he could complete so great a task in the three years that he proposed to give to it, informing him that the French Academy, with its forty members, took forty years to complete its dictionary. "Thus it is, sir," replied Johnson; "this is the proportion. Let me see-forty times forty is sixteen hundred. As three is to sixteen hundred so is the proportion of an Englishman to a Frenchman." This waggish spirit often appears in his great work, which abounds in quips.

Johnson's great work-the greatest in English that the world was to see until the dictionary produced by Noah Webster-was full of individuality, and full of blemishes because he undertook to define the words in the English language as tho the English language were one of the dead. languages. He himself, in his preface, declared that his work was an attempt to fix the language, not as it was, but as it ought to be; that was the rock on which the reputation of Johnson as a lexicographer was wrecked.

Little attention was paid to pronunciation till after the publication of Johnson's Dictionary. Since that time, many dictionaries have been issued in which the pronunciation of the language has been made the principal object. Dr. William Kenrick's work was one of the first of this kind a large quarto volume, published in 1772-but the editor handicapped the usefulness of his work by omitting a large number of words of difficult or doubtful pronunciation. This was followed in 1775 by Perry's "Royal Standard English Dictionary"-a small work issued in Edinburgh-which had an extensive circulation both in Great Britain and in the United States.

To Thomas Sheridan, the actor, we owe a "Complete Dictionary of the English Language, both with Regard to Sound and Meaning, one main Object of which is to establish a plain and permanent Standard of Pronunciation." This work, published in 1780, commanded more attention, as a pronouncing dictionary, than any other of the kind that preceded it. It was followed in 1791 by the dictionary of John Walker, entitled "A Critical Pronouncing Dictionary and Expositor of the English Language; in which not only the Meaning of every Word is clearly explained, and the Sound of every Syllable distinctly shown, but where Words are subject to different Pronunciation, the Authorities of our best Pronouncing Dictionaries are fully exhibited, the Reasons for each are at large displayed, and the preferable Pronunciation is pointed out; to which are prefixed Principles of English Pronunciation." In the compilation of his work Walker made pronunciation his leading object, and in this lay its chief value. He aimed "principally to give a kind of history Mrs. Piozzi prints the word "adverb," but corrects it to "adjective" in the list of errata.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE DICTIONARY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

of pronunciation and to register its present state." Few lexicographers have given more thorough attention to the subject of orthoepy than he. Prior, in his "Life of Edmund Burke," says: "One of the persons who particularly solicited Mr. Burke's exertions on a certain occasion was Mr. or (as he was commonly termed) Elocution Walker, author of the 'Pronouncing Dictionary' and other works of merit, and who had given lessons in the art to young Burke. . . . Mr. Burke, one day, in the vicinity of the House of Commons, introduced him to a nobleman, accidentally passing, with the following characteristic exordium: 'Here, my Lord Berkeley, is Mr. Walker, whom not to know, by name at least, would argue a want of knowledge of the harmonies, cadences, and proprieties of our language.'

NOAH WEBSTER

Walker's Dictionary was in reality a transcript of Johnson's, with the addition of the current pronunciation affixed to each word, and the omission of the etymologies and authorities.

It is somewhat curious that America should owe its first dictionary to a man who bore the name of Samuel Johnson. He was not related in any way to the Sage of Fleet Street, but was born in the town of Guildford, Conn., March 10, 1757. The work he edited favored simplified spelling, and gave as its preference such forms as arbor, fervor, program, etc. It was the first American pronouncing dictionary in which the macron (-) was used to indicate the "first or natural

sound,

as of the

vowel a in "ale"; the breve () to indicate the "second or short" sound, as of the vowel a in "am"; the circumflex (^) to indicate a sound different from either, as that of a in "all."

As this, the first American dictionary, was printed and published by Edward O'Brien, at New Haven, Conn., in 1798-eight years before "Noah Webster, Esq., "issued his "Compendious Dictionary". Samuel Johnson was "father of American lexicography," and not Noah Webster. The Second American Dictionary was produced by Samuel Johnson jointly with the Rev. John Elliott in January, 1800. The latter, who was born August 28, 1768, was a direct descendant of John Eliot, "the apostle to the Indians." The family name was variously spelled Eliot or Elliott.

Noah Webster's "American Dictionary" was not issued until 1828. In that work Webster strove to steer clear of the shallows that pointed to the rock which wrecked Johnson's reputation as a reliable lexicologist; but he, like his predecessor, sailed with no pilot but himself, and instead of allowing his individuality to permeate the definitions of the book he permitted it to assert itself in his etymologies. Sir James A. H. Murray has pointed out* that Webster "had the

JOSEPH WORCESTER

notion that derivations can be elaborated from one's own consciousness as well as definitions, and

* Romanes Lecture, 1900, p. 43.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE DICTIONARY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

he included in his work so-called 'etymologies' of this sort. But Etymology is simply Word-history, and Word-history, like all other history, is a record of the facts which did happen, not a fabric of conjectures as to what may have happened."

To the student of language the etymologies of Webster's American Dictionary are valueless -the world did not know their worthlessness at the time, but the great Webster himself knew his shortcoming, and admitted that, after having given years of labor to the compiling of his dictionary, he was compelled to put this work aside. In order to fulfil his tasks conscientiously he must remodel his plan of work and begin again. As he said, he found himself "embarrassed at every step for want of knowledge of the origin of words"; so, laying aside his manuscripts, and all books treating of language except lexicons and dictionaries, he spent ten years in the comparison of radical words and in the formation of a synopsis of the principal words of twenty tongues. He was determined, if it was possible, to make his work complete; and to this end he resolved, as did his successor, that his book should "contain all the words of the language in their correct orthography, with their pronunciation and etymology, and their definition, exemplified in their different meanings by citations from writers belonging to different periods of English literature." But in his first issue he had some curious mistakes in cricketing-terms. The wicketkeeper he explained as "the player in cricket who stands with a bat to protect the wicket from the ball," and a long-stop as "one who is sent to stop balls sent a long distance."

While believing in the doctrine that propriety in language is to be determined, not by the opinion of the most cultivated but by the general usage of the people, Webster, nevertheless, "used to go about among the printing-offices and persuade people to spell and pronounce as he did," usurping thus the functions of law-giver and dictator, and forgetting that the function of the lexicographer is not to make the law but merely to state it, and to set it forth clearly as it exists. Webster maintained "that the speech which generally prevailed in New England in his day represented the best and most historic pronunciation. He himself said rollum for volume, and perce for pierce." Subsequent editors have eliminated the errors committed by Webster, so that to-day at least one of the works that bears his name ranks in scholarship with the dictionaries of his

successors.

Noah Webster's great rival in lexicography, Joseph Emerson Worcester, spent his youth in agricultural labor. He made no attempt to secure a liberal education until he attained his majority. Then he carried his purpose into effect, and entered Yale College in 1809, graduating therefrom in 1811. For several years he was employed as a teacher in Salem, Mass. His first work in the field of lexicography was an edition of "Johnson's Dictionary, as improved by Todd and abridged by Chalmers, with Walker's Pronouncing Dictionary, combined." This appeared in 1828. In 1846 he published his "Universal and Critical Dictionary of the English Language,' a work upon which he had been for many years engaged. This work was reissued in London by an unscrupulous publisher, with a mutilated preface, and the false title of "A Universal Critical and Pronouncing Dictionary of the English Language, compiled from the materials of Noah Webster, LL.D., by Joseph E. Worcester." This gross literary fraud he exposed in a pamphlet published in 1853, and republished, with additions, in 1855.

As a lexicographer Worcester did not undertake to reform long-established anomalies in the English language; his aim was rather to preserve it from corruption; and his works all aimed to contribute to that end. His purpose in preparing this dictionary he stated to be "to perform it in a manner that would afford no ground for reasonable complaint, or give any just cause of offense to any one; and that its moral influence, so far as such a work may have any, should be unexceptionable. It was not undertaken with the expectation of receiving anything like an ample pecuniary compensation for the labor. But time spent in a useful employment, however humble, passes more pleasantly than time wasted in idleness; and if this Dictionary shall be found to be a work of utility in any considerable degree proportioned to the labor bestowed upon it; if, instead of tending to corrupt the language, it shall conduce to preserve and promote its purity and correctness; and if it shall give satisfaction to those who have manifested an interest in it, or have in any way befriended it, the author will feel that he has no reason to regret having performed the labor."

Worcester lived to see his effort appreciated, and during the second half of the nineteenth century it had a large circulation, but a revision which was started about ten years ago proved so costly an undertaking for the publishers that it has never seen the light.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE DICTIONARY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

Dr. Charles Richardson, in his "New Dictionary of the English Language Illustrated by Quotations from the best Authors" (1836-1837), elaborated Johnson's plan. As Dr. Murray tells us, Richardson, "observing how much light was shed on the meaning of words by Johnson's quotations, was impressed with the notion that, in a dictionary, definitions are unnecessary, that quotations alone are sufficient; and he proceeded to carry this into effect by making a dictionary without definitions or explanations of meaning, or at least with the merest rudiments of them, but illustrating each group of words by a large series of quotations. In the collection of these he displayed immense research. Going far beyond the limits of Dr. Johnson, he quoted from authors

back to the year 1300, and, probably for the first time, made Chaucer and Gower and Piers Ploughman living names to many readers."

Dr. John Ogilvie's "Imperial Dictionary of the English Language" followed; it was begun in 1847 and completed in 1850. This work, so far as one may be permitted to judge from its preface, was based also upon Bailey's Dictionary, but brought to its aid in elucidating its definitions a large number of woodcuts. In the preparation of the Century Dictionary, an excellent work, the first issue of which bears the date 1889, a later edition of Ogilvie's Imperial Dictionary, edited by Dr. Charles Annandale, was used. Much of the material, definitive as well as illustrative, of the English work was utilized by Dr. William D. Whitney in producing his work.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE DICTIONARY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

In 1856 the Philological Society of England proposed to issue a New English Dictionary which should contain "every word occurring in the literature of the language," and "admit as authorities all English books." The work, which was begun in 1879, has progressed through many vicissitudes and has almost reached completion, but the original plan proposed has not been carried out, and altho, when the work is completed, it will prove to be the largest dictionary of the English language extant, so much time has been taken in its production that its editors have not been able to keep pace with the growth of the language, and in this respect it will fall short of the society's original intention. At this time the work is well advanced in the letter T. In recognition of his untiring labors of fifty years, the editor-in-chief of this monument of British scholarship, Dr. James A. H. Murray, has been rewarded with the honor of knighthood.

Then there came a lull in affairs lexicographical. For the greater part of a century the American people waited for another lexicographer, for the practical man who could give them what they needed at once-the correct spelling of words, their commonest meaning, and their derivation. The man who did this was far-seeing. He believed that most of the people who consulted dictionaries did so not to find the original meanings of words-not the meaning of girl that once was boy-but the meaning of the day, and so he boldly inverted the practise of the lexicographers who had preceded him, and in the work he compiled gave the world first the commonest meaning of all the words in the language-that man was ISAAC KAUFFMAN FUNK.

Born at Clifton, Ohio, September 10, 1839, he passed rapidly through his schooling time, receiving his diploma from Wittenberg College before he was 21, and at once entered the ministry of the Lutheran Church, near Moreshill, Ind. Between the years 1861 and 1872 Dr. Funk continued this work in Carey (Ohio) and Brooklyn, but after a trip through Europe, Egypt, and Palestine he entered a wider field of usefulness in the work of journalism and publishing. He was associate editor of The Christian Radical (Pittsburg), 1872-73, and of The Union Advocate (New York), 1873-75. In 1876 he founded The Metropolitan Pulpit, and in the following year The Complete Preacher, which, in 1878, he merged into The Homiletic Monthly, which since 1885 has been known as The Homiletic Review. In 1877 he entered into partnership with Adam. Willis Wagnalls, founding the publishing firm known for many years as Funk & Wagnalls, which was incorporated in 1890 as the Funk & Wagnalls Company. As a militant prohibitionist Dr. Funk established The Voice as a campaign paper in the interests of the Prohibition Party in 1880, and conducted it for many years. In 1890 he planned and launched The Literary Digest.

As the Editor of that publication has appropriately said: "A glance at the character of these publications gives a picture of the mind that conceived them. Beginning as a clergyman, he continued throughout his life to publish books to aid preachers. Himself a scholar, he published a veritable library of works of reference and erudition. Always a 'progressive,' he aided every new cause that seemed to promise benefit to mankind, from the suppression of the evils of intemperance to the simplification of spelling. Under his editorial supervision, his firm published many important compendiums of information, covering almost every branch of human knowledge. But the most important of all was "A STANDARD DICTIONARY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE," of which the first edition was issued in November, 1894, and a revised and enlarged edition in 1903. This work, more than any other undertaken by Dr. Funk, bears the impress of his individuality on every page. To his foresight, genius, and fearless initiative, lexicography owes a work that disregarded many outworn conventions that hampered it until his time. Lexicography was his favorite pursuit, and the STANDARD DICTIONARY will remain the best memorial of his indefatigable energy and practical scholarship."

There have been many changes in the meanings of words since the days, in the sixteenth century, when dictionaries were chained in the school-houses just as Bibles were chained to the lecterns in the churches. One of the special features of the NEW STANDARD DICTIONARY is the presenting of these meanings in such a way that the consultant of the dictionary, or the student of the language, can with slight effort obtain the latest information on the mutations of words.

In Ben Jonson's time mutton, which we use exclusively to-day to designate the flesh of sheep prepared for food, was commonly used as a synonym for sheep (Ben Jonson, "The Sad Shepherd," act i. sc. 2). Minion, to-day used as an opprobrious epithet, formerly meant "darling," a meaning that still survives in the French mignon. There is extant an old English song in which this meaning is clearly applied: