A History of the Dictionary: From User to Lexicographer

1. Gresham College Lecture series: Look it up yourself! A History of the Dictionary From dictionary user to amateur lexicographerPossibilities of on-line searches Costas Gabrielatos (Lancaster University) 23 March 2009

2. Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it. Samuel Johnson(Statement made April 18, 1775, quoted in Boswell's Life of Johnson) • How will the information be used? • Comprehension • Production

3. Do you know this word? • What does ‘knowing’ a word involve?

4. To know a word:Form • Written form • Spelling chagrin • Spoken form • Pronunciation ‘sh’ or ‘tsh’ • Stress chagrin or chagrin • Symbols vs. audio /ʃægrɪn / (BrE) /ʃəgrɪn/ (AmE)

5. To know a word: Grammar (a) • Part of speech • Countable/uncountable (for nouns) • Not independent of meaning • experience [LDOCE] • Derivatives • extend (verb) • extendability/ extendibility / extensibility (noun) • extendable / extendible / extensible (adjective)

6. To know a word:Grammar (b) • Transitivity (for verbs) • She gave a concert / They gave her a present • Prices have been rising • Grammatical patterns: help vs. facilitate • policies that help/facilitate development • help/facilitate a neighbour to move the sofa • help/facilitate a student with an assignment

7. To know a word: Meaning • Sense(s) • Connotations The Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English Onlinehttp://www.ldoceonline.com • Image reredos

8. To know a word: Meaning: specialised words collateralized debt obligation InvestorWords, www.investorwords.com

9. To know a word: The lexical company a word keeps stale bread rancid butter sour milk

10. To know a word: The lexical company a word keeps The Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English Onlinehttp://www.ldoceonline.com

11. To know a word: Use • Contexts of use • general/specialised • heart attack – (acute) myocardial infarction • archaic/formal/informal/colloquial/slang • offspring - minor - child - kid - brat • Frequency • In what contexts?

12. To know a word: Meaning in relation to other words • Synonyms / Antonyms • expand Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary http://www.merriam-webster.com

13. To know a word:Etymology (the history of a word) Encarta ahttp://encarta.msn.com/encnet/features/dictionary/dictionaryhome.aspx

14. World Wide Words (Michael Quinion), www.worldwidewords.org

15. To know a word:A holistic view: examples • Examples can demonstrate most of the aspects of knowing a word. • What does this word mean? • What does this word do? • The more examples, the better our understanding – patterns and frequency • What kind of examples? • Whose examples?

16. Prescription or description? Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There, Lewis Carroll, 1871 'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone,' it means just what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less.' 'The question is,' said Alice, 'whether you can make words mean so many different things.' 'The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'which is to be master - that's all.'

17. Sources of examples • Corpora • British National Corpus (BNC), 100 million words • http://sara.natcorp.ox.ac.uk/lookup.html • The web as a corpus • WebCorp • http://www.webcorp.org.uk

18. egregious • Conspicuously bad or offensive. • Often of mistakes, extremely and noticeably bad. • An egregious mistake, failure, problem etc is extremely bad and noticeable. • Extraordinary in some bad way; glaring; flagrant: an egregious mistake; an egregious liar. • Conspicuous ; especially : conspicuously bad : flagrant <egregious errors> <egregious padding of the evidence — Christopher Hitchens>

19. egregious Conspicuously bad or offensive. Often of mistakes, extremely and noticeably bad. An egregious mistake, failure, problem etc is extremely bad and noticeable. Extraordinary in some bad way; glaring; flagrant: an egregious mistake; an egregious liar. Conspicuous ; especially : conspicuously bad : flagrant <egregious errors> <egregious padding of the evidence — Christopher Hitchens>

20. egregious Conspicuouslybad or offensive. Often of mistakes, extremely and noticeablybad. An egregious mistake, failure, problem etc is extremely bad and noticeable. Extraordinary in some bad way; glaring; flagrant: an egregious mistake; an egregious liar. Conspicuous ; especially : conspicuouslybad : flagrant <egregious errors> <egregious padding of the evidence — Christopher Hitchens>

21. egregious Conspicuously bad or offensive. Often of mistakes, extremely and noticeably bad. An egregious mistake, failure, problem etc is extremely bad and noticeable. Extraordinary in some bad way; glaring; flagrant: an egregious mistake; an egregious liar. Conspicuous ; especially: conspicuously bad : flagrant <egregiouserrors> <egregiouspadding of the evidence — Christopher Hitchens>

22. egregious in the BNC • 36 instances • Action/behaviour/event/result etc. (15) • Person/organisation etc. (12) • Mistake/error etc. (6) • Object (2) • Other (1)

23. Types of dictionaries • General - alphabetical • General - thematic (concepts) • Thesaurus • Terminological • Pronunciation • Collocations (lexical patterns) • Pictorial • Encyclopaedic

24. Possibilities of online searches • The ‘ultimate’ reference source (?) • Free • Quick and easy comparison of information • ‘Lexical journeys’ • Primary research