THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE DICTIONARY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

reference-books available, he created a definition that did not infringe the rights of any one of the books, to which, to avoid errors, he made constant and careful reference. This work gave steady employment to forty definers.

Next, the quotations on which the definitions of the words were based were verified as to text and spelling, for it should be borne in mind that the NEW STANDARD ranks among single-volume dictionaries as the only one whose quotations are not garbled to suit editorial fancy in spelling or context. This done, the quotations were then attached to the work of the definer before it was handed to the reviewer for inspection. After this the definitions and quotations were typewritten, the typewritten proof read and held for final revision. The final revision completed, the work was prepared for the printer.

The next stage through which the work was put was that of composition. Printing-office proofs were struck, and the last of these, with the proof-readers' queries and the copy, was sent to the editorial rooms, where the queries were answered, the proof returned, and the copy filed away. After this proof was corrected, a second was sent to the editorial rooms, but, in addition, 250 impressions of it were forwarded to the "correspondence" department, which sent them to the various authorities in the English-speaking world, who were to pass the work finally.

Each of these authorities examined such words as came within the scope of his learning, and, if need be, corrected them, and returned the proof sent him, signed and approved. On their receipt. at the editorial rooms each set of proofs was handed to a transcribing department, to the head of which was given a duplicate galley-proof pasted on a sheet of linen folio, and upon these sheets every one of the experts' corrections was transcribed. This work once completed, the sheet was transferred to the associate editors for editing, and then it was sent to the illustration department, where the positions of the engravings that embellished the volume were indicated.

To guard against error, the pronunciations and etymologies were again verified, then the sheet was sent to the compounders and proof-readers, who perfected their work, and thereafter it went before the managing editor, and finally was passed upon by the editor-in-chief, who supervised every line of the work. This done, the galleys were made up into pages, proved several times, then cast into plates, and here, with the exception of the imposition and printing, the work came to an end.

The making of a modern dictionary is no small enterprise. Embarking on such an undertaking requires thousands of dollars to assure success. Funds are needed to an almost unbounded extent-one work cost the publisher as much as $400,000, and the work was complete only as far as the letter E. With Dr. FUNK's work things were different. Notwithstanding the panic of 1893; notwithstanding the financial stringency existing at that time, the publishers poured money unsparingly into the mill that was to grind out the work which was to establish their reputation as the producers of big things, and within five years from the start the work was finished.

In the field of chromatics Dr. FUNK was not slow to see the immense value of a standard of colors, if such could be established. With this idea in mind he summoned to his aid professors in physics, and with their assistance and that of a large number of manufacturers of colors and colored goods, produced the first effective standard of colors known. By reducing the entire subject to units and building up therefrom, this system enables any one at one end of the world who wishes to order goods of a definite color from one at the other to do so with the positive assurance that he will get what he needs. This feature alone is one of the master features of Dr. FUNK'S work, and one which should make it of inestimable value to industrial commerce. To investigate the subject $5,000 were spent for preliminary work, and by the time the necessary formulas were produced, put into type, and supplemented by a plate of typical colors, another $5,000 were sunk$10,000 spent to achieve something that had never before been attempted in lexicography.

Ours is an age of specialized knowledge, an age in which no man can know all, but one in which many minds may, by specialization, encompass the realm of the knowable and present it to the world for the benefit of their fellow men and women. For this reason, the aid of scholars and of specialists is commonly resorted to when some great literary enterprise is to be undertaken. As Sir James Murray has pertinently said: "Original work, patient induction of facts, minute verification of evidence, are slow processes, and a work so characterized can not be put together with scissors and paste, or run off with the speed of the copyist. All the great dictionaries of the modern languages have taken a long time to make." It took almost four years of time to edit and print the NEW STANDARD DICTIONARY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. Typographically the work has been produced entirely by the means of typesetting and typecasting machinery. Some idea of the vastness of the enterprise undertaken may be obtained from the following records of the work,

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE DICTIONARY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

as it advanced toward completion. The total number of words critically examined, revised, or defined in the course of making the NEW STANDARD was 513,000. Of these, 63,000 were rejected as (1) dead beyond all possibility of revival, (2) obsolescent, (3) as of little or no value, or (4) of such rare or specific use as to be manifestly outside of the pale of a dictionary designed for popular and practical use. The vocabulary of the dictionary consists of 450,000 terms, 65,000 proper names -Biblical, bibliographical, biographical, geographical, mythological, personal, etc.; 32,000 quotations illustrative of the uses of words, or often encyclopedic, and adding valuable information to the definitions; 23,000 synonyms, contrasted and compared, affording an exact guide to the fine distinctions in the meanings of words; and 5,000 antonyms, or antitheses, or counter-terms.

A dictionary that, twenty-four years ago, contained 125,000 words now claims 400,000-an inflation of 275,000 words, from which it might be inferred that the English language has been enriched more than 200 per cent. in the interval. But the fact remains that the work referred to recorded in 1890 less than one-half of the language current at the time of its publication, so the increase is much less. As a prominent member of a publishing-house, which has been engaged in issuing dictionaries for many years, once pertinently said: "It is a commonplace among lexicographers that increases in a dictionary come . . . from a liberalizing of the rules of inclusion.” Had the editors of the NEW STANDARD DICTIONARY been content to draw upon Old English and Middle English for words, they could have enlarged their vocabulary at least 25 per cent. But these skeletons of our speech, adorned in an orthography long since cast off, most lexicographers have, by common consent, decided to leave undisturbed in the catacombs of the English tongue. Only the living language, and that part of Old English that has survived in use in the English Classics, were kept. The number of words that a dictionary contains is not of as much importance as is the quality of the words. To-day, the man who wants the living language will buy the dictionary that provides it, and the man who needs the dead language will purchase that which has specialized in that "important field of study and research"-the tombstones of our tongue.

The contents of the NEW STANDARD DICTIONARY passed before many pairs of eyes before the plates were ready for printing. From the copy to the printed sheet, there passed before my own, matter sufficient to make no fewer than 2,952 printed pages, each of which contained an average of 3,400 words, comprising the vocabulary terms and the words used to define them. Multiply the number of type pages, 2,952, by the average number of words on the printed page, 3,400, and you get a total of 10,036,800 words which passed under editorial scrutiny six times-(1) copy; (2) galley-proof; (3) page-proof; (4) plate-proof; (5) revised plate-proof; (6) press-sheet. Multiply 10,036,800 words by 6, and you get a grand total of 60,220,800 words. Reducing these words to their units-letters-computation yields an average of 5,242 letters in each of the three columns of the NEW STANDARD DICTIONARY, or 15,726 letters per page. Multiply this number by the 2,952 pages of text in the book, and the result is a total of 46,423,152 letters, figures, or other symbols, in the entire work, which, multiplied by 6 (the number of times these letters passed under supervision), yields a grand total of 278,538,912 typographical symbols of all kinds.

The work of making the NEW STANDARD DICTIONARY involved the handling, in the editorial rooms, of 145,944 sheets of copy, the work of 380 specialists and other scholars, which kept eight machine-operators steadily occupied more than two years "playing" especially-designed keyboards, each of which contained 225 different keys. The number of ems played daily by each operator averaged 20,000. In addition to the operators referred to, there were engaged on the typographical end of the work, six casters in charge of twelve casting-machines (which cast 24,000 ems per day), 36 correctors, make-up men, stone-hands, foundry molders, and plate-finishers, eight printers' proof-readers, and six copy-holders. These persons, 64 in all, were kept employed for three years and seven months, during which time they handled more than 51,000 lbs. (over 25 tons) of type, and more than 7,000 definitive pictorial illustrations presenting 10,914 separate figures, which serve to illustrate several thousand distinct parts.

Four thousand and ten reams of paper, weighing 380,785 lbs., were used, and from 14 to 18 printing-presses were run continuously for four and a half months to print the first edition of 20,000 copies. Independent of these was the lithographer's work, which occupied several additional presses for a like period of time.

The cost of producing the new work has exceeded $425,000, which, added to the initial cost of the STANDARD DICTIONARY, $1,100,000, entitles the publishers to the distinction of having erected to the memory of their former president, the late Dr. ISAAC K. FUNK, a monument full worthy of his sagacity as a man, and of his ripe erudition as a scholar.