[00:00.00]Text
[00:02.61]How Dictionaries Are Made
[00:06.14]It is widely believed that every word has a correct meaning,
[00:11.78]that we learn these meanings mainly from teachers and grammars,
[00:17.06]and that dictionaries and grammar books are the highest authority
[00:22.52]in matters of meaning and usage.
[00:26.46]Few people ask by what authority
[00:30.62]the writers of dictionaries and grammars say what they say.
[00:36.39]I once got into an argument with an English woman
[00:41.12]over the pronunciation of a word and offered to look it up in the dictionary
[00:47.05]The English woman said firmly,"What for?I am English.
[00:52.72]I was born and brought up in England.
[00:56.27]The way I speak is English.
[00:59.61]"Such confidence about one's own language is not uncommon among the English
[01:05.78]In the United States,however,
[01:09.12]anyone who is willing to quarrel with the dictionary
[01:13.48]is regarded as out of his mind.
[01:17.14]Let us see how dictionaries are made and how the editors arrive at definitions
[01:23.20]What follows applies only to those dictionary offices
[01:28.27]where firsth and research goes on
[01:32.03]not those in which editors simply copy existing dictionaries.
[01:37.59]The task of writing a dictionary
[01:41.36]begins with reading huge amounts
[01:45.82]of the literature of the period or subject that the dictionary is to cover.
[01:50.68]As the editors read,they copy on cards every unusual use of a common word,
[01:58.23]a large number of common words is their ordinary uses,
[02:02.98]and also the sentences in which each of these words appears.
[02:08.34]That is to say,the context of each word s collected,along with the word itself.
[02:15.50]For a really big job of dictionary writing,such as the Oxford English Dictionary
[02:22.58]millions of such cards are collected,and the task of editing occupies decades.
[02:30.02]As the cards are collected,they are arranged in alphabetical order.
[02:35.79]When the sorting is completed,
[02:39.14]there will be for each word anywhere from two or three
[02:44.21]to several hundred sentences,
[02:47.86]each on its card,which illustrate the meaning and use of the word.
[02:53.71]To define a word,then,
[02:56.90]the dictionary editor places before him all the cards illustrating that word;
[03:03.43]each of the cards represents an actual use of the word by a writer of some importance
[03:09.88]He reads the cards carefully,throws away some,rereads the rest,
[03:16.05]and divides them up according to what he thinks
[03:20.41]are the several senses of the word.
[03:24.25]Finally,he writes his definitions,
[03:28.82]following the hard-and-fast rule
[03:32.58]that each definition must be based on what the sentences
[03:38.04]in front of him show about the meanings of the word.
[03:42.80]The editor cannot be influenced by what he thinks a given word ought to mean
[03:48.75]He must work according to the cards,or not at all.
[03:53.80]The writing of a dictionary,therefore,
[03:57.64]is not a task of setting up ruling statements about the"true meanings"of words
[04:04.01]but a task of recording,to the best of one's ability,
[04:09.16]what arious words have meant to authors in the distant or immediate past.
[04:15.50]The writer of a dictionary is a historian,not a lawgiver.
[04:21.15]If,for example,we had been writing a dictionary in 1890,or even as late as 1919
[04:29.79]we could have said that the word"broadcast"means"to scatter"(seed,for example)
[04:37.24]but we could not have laid down that from 1919
[04:42.59]on the most common meaning of the word should become
[04:47.27]"to send out programs by radio or television."
[04:52.31]To regard the dictionary as an"authority,"therefore,
[04:56.88]is to look upon the dictionary writer as being able to see into the future
[05:03.05]which neither he nor anyone else can do.
[05:07.41]In choosing our words when we speak or write,
[05:11.48]we can be guided by the historical record provided for us by the dictionary
[05:17.44]but we should not be bound by it,
[05:21.10]because new situations,new experiences,new inventions,
[05:26.06]new feelings are always making us give new uses to old words. |