Sign-In
Cart
Hardly Harmless Drudgery: A 500-Year Pictorial History of the Lexicographic Geniuses, Sciolists, Plagiarists, and Obsessives Who Defined the English L
Hardcover
LexicographyLinguisticsGeneral World History
Publisher Price: $65.00
Please select the version of book you would like to purchase.
ISBN10: 1567928072
ISBN13: 9781567928075
Publisher: David R. Godine Publisher
Published: Apr 30 2024
Pages: 520
Weight: 3.60
Height: 1.90 Width: 7.60 Depth: 9.40
Language: English
ISBN13: 9781567928075
Publisher: David R. Godine Publisher
Published: Apr 30 2024
Pages: 520
Weight: 3.60
Height: 1.90 Width: 7.60 Depth: 9.40
Language: English
A delight--Booklist
A richly illustrated historical account of English-language dictionaries, and the people who made them, from the dawn of printing to the present day.Dictionaries are repositories of erudition, monuments to linguistic authority, and battlefields in cultural and political struggles. For centuries, they were also works of almost superhuman endurance, produced by people who devoted themselves for years, even decades, to the wearisome labor of corralling, recording, and defining the vocabulary of a language. Dictionaries also are often beautiful objects: typographically innovative, designed to project learning and authority.
Painstakingly collected and lovingly presented, here are the stories behind great works of scholarship and the people who produced them--their prodigious endurance, their nationalist fervor, their philological elucubrations haphazardly mixed with crackpot theories, their petty rivalries, their need for sales, and their sometimes irrational conduct and visceral hatreds.
Readers will find towering figures of English lexicography--Samuel Johnson, the American patriot Noah Webster, the Oxford English Dictionary's James Murray--and many more obscure lexicographers whose achievements and biographies are no less fascinating. For one, meet Ann Fisher, England's first female lexicographer, whose dictionary in 1773 introduced the radical innovation of alphabetically separating the letter pairs I and J and U and V (reacting against her predecessors who had ever blended and confounded them).
The lesser-known works here include the small, unassuming 1604 book that is generally regarded as the first English dictionary; the early representatives of the hard word tradition as it evolves into attempts to cover the whole vocabulary; and the vast Century Dictionary--an American enterprise that rivaled the original OED.
As the quest for completeness placed a dictionary beyond one author's ability (or lifespan), editors and publishers adapted. For the OED, in 1918, J. R. R. Tolkien was hired to define select words beginning with W (and he tackled warm, wash, wasp, water, wick, and winter). Later in the 20th century, the Random House Dictionary of the English Language was marketed as relying not on famous literary figures or educators, but instead on computers for exactitude.
However they may have been written and compiled, dictionaries induce us to ask about the basis of authority. Who gets to say what is an English word and what is not, what words mean, and how words should be used? The 19th century saw a craze for nonstandard, regional dialect, the collection of which led to crowdsourcing before that word had even been coined (the same basic method continues today with the Urban Dictionary website). In 1944, the first dictionary by a Black American (of slang hepster jive) appeared. The first gay dictionary emerged in the early 1970s, followed in the 1980s by the first dictionary for feminists and the first for hackers. Meanwhile, the form of dictionaries has changed--especially since 1995 and the start-up website Dictionary.com. Today, the future of the printed dictionary is in question, but the central relevance of dictionaries, whatever their format, to communication and culture endures.
Hardly Harmless Drudgery is a long-overdue celebration of all those who toiled in service of language and meaning. It covers more than half a millennium, from the 15th century to the 21st, with biographical and bibliographical information, correspondence, and engrossing details never before published. Profusely illustrated with 750 photographs of books and ephemera, this is nothing less than a glorious celebration of words and the people who love them.
Readers will find towering figures of English lexicography--Samuel Johnson, the American patriot Noah Webster, the Oxford English Dictionary's James Murray--and many more obscure lexicographers whose achievements and biographies are no less fascinating. For one, meet Ann Fisher, England's first female lexicographer, whose dictionary in 1773 introduced the radical innovation of alphabetically separating the letter pairs I and J and U and V (reacting against her predecessors who had ever blended and confounded them).
The lesser-known works here include the small, unassuming 1604 book that is generally regarded as the first English dictionary; the early representatives of the hard word tradition as it evolves into attempts to cover the whole vocabulary; and the vast Century Dictionary--an American enterprise that rivaled the original OED.
As the quest for completeness placed a dictionary beyond one author's ability (or lifespan), editors and publishers adapted. For the OED, in 1918, J. R. R. Tolkien was hired to define select words beginning with W (and he tackled warm, wash, wasp, water, wick, and winter). Later in the 20th century, the Random House Dictionary of the English Language was marketed as relying not on famous literary figures or educators, but instead on computers for exactitude.
However they may have been written and compiled, dictionaries induce us to ask about the basis of authority. Who gets to say what is an English word and what is not, what words mean, and how words should be used? The 19th century saw a craze for nonstandard, regional dialect, the collection of which led to crowdsourcing before that word had even been coined (the same basic method continues today with the Urban Dictionary website). In 1944, the first dictionary by a Black American (of slang hepster jive) appeared. The first gay dictionary emerged in the early 1970s, followed in the 1980s by the first dictionary for feminists and the first for hackers. Meanwhile, the form of dictionaries has changed--especially since 1995 and the start-up website Dictionary.com. Today, the future of the printed dictionary is in question, but the central relevance of dictionaries, whatever their format, to communication and culture endures.
Hardly Harmless Drudgery is a long-overdue celebration of all those who toiled in service of language and meaning. It covers more than half a millennium, from the 15th century to the 21st, with biographical and bibliographical information, correspondence, and engrossing details never before published. Profusely illustrated with 750 photographs of books and ephemera, this is nothing less than a glorious celebration of words and the people who love them.
Also from
Garner, Bryan A.
HBR Guides to Being an Effective Manager Collection
Garner, Bryan A.
Review, Harvard Business
Duarte, Nancy
Paperback
$85.50
Also in
Lexicography
Quack This Way: David Foster Wallace & Bryan A. Garner Talk Language and Writing
Wallace, David Foster
Garner, Bryan
Paperback
$18.00
F*ck Off, I'm Coloring! Swear Word Coloring Book: 40 Cuss Words and Insults to Color & Relax: Adult Coloring Books
Adult Coloring Books
Swear Word Coloring Book
Swear Word Adult Coloring Book
Paperback
$11.24
The Lexicon: A Cornucopia of Wonderful Words for the Inquisitive Word Lover
Buckley, William F., Jr.
Buckley, William F., Jr.
Paperback
$14.99
Quack This Way: David Foster Wallace & Bryan A. Garner Talk Language and Writing
Garner, Bryan
Wallace, David Foster
Hardcover
$23.70
Diccionario de la Lengua Española (de Bolsillo) / Spanish Language Dictionary (Pocket)
Espasa Calpe
Paperback
$17.05
All the Knowledge in the World: The Extraordinary History of the Encyclopedia
Garfield, Simon
Paperback
$20.89
The Story of Ain't: America, Its Language, and the Most Controversial Dictionary Ever Published
Skinner, David
Paperback
$17.99
There's a Word for It (Revised Edition): A Grandiloquent Guide to Life
Elster, Charles Harrington
Paperback
$18.95
The Manchu Mirrors and the Knowledge of Plants and Animals in High Qing China
Bian, He
Saarela, Mårten Söderblom
Hardcover
$75.54
Arabic Lexicography - Its history, and its place in the general history of Lexicography
Haywood, John A.
Paperback
$23.74
The Smutesaurus: The Ultimate Guide to Superior and Preposterous Language for Romance Writers
Swart, Samantha
Paperback
$14.39
Samskrta Bharati: Indus Script Dictionary, Epigraphia Mlecchita Vikalpa, 'Meluhha cipher'
Kalyanaraman, S.
Paperback
$19.19
Vollständiges Wörterbuch Deutsch-Esperanto in drei Bänden. Band 2 (H-R): Plena Vortaro Germana-Esperanto en tri volumoj. Volumo 2 (H-R)
Krause, Erich-Dieter
Hardcover
$105.00
Vollständiges Wörterbuch Deutsch-Esperanto in drei Bänden. Band 3 (S-Z): Plena Vortaro Germana-Esperanto en tri volumoj. Volumo 3 (S-Z)
Krause, Erich-Dieter
Hardcover
$105.00
Dictionary of Digital Pictograms and Glossary for Internet Use and Portable Telephones
Martin, Marcienne
Hardcover
$149.93
A Frequency Dictionary of Multi-Word Expressions in British English: Core Phrases and Exercises for Learners
Brezina, Vaclav
Gablasova, Dana
Paperback
$85.39
Ein Fachsprachliches Elektronisches Lernwörterbuch: Konzeption, Prototyperstellung Und Evaluation Am Beispiel Der Mathematik
Kruse, Theresa
Hardcover
$131.99
Eros Und Emanzipation in Der Französischsprachigen Sexuallexikographie: Diachrone Betrachtungen Zu Gender Und Tabu
Heidepeter, Philipp
Hardcover
$318.99
The American Cyclopaedia: A Popular Dictionary of General Knowledge. Edited by George Ripley and Charles A. Dana: 16
Ripley, George
Dana, Charles a. 1819-1897
Dana, Charles Anderson
Paperback
$46.19
Cognitive Lexicography: A New Approach to Lexicography Making Use of Cognitive Semantics
Ostermann, Carolin
Hardcover
$242.14
Chambers's Encyclopædia: A Dictionary of Universal Knowledge for the People; Volume 4
Chambers, Ephraim
Paperback
$46.19
Lexicon Cum Annotationibus Interpretum Lectionibusque Libri Ms. Vratislaviensis
Harpocration, Valerius
Paperback
$33.69
Dizionario Delle Arti E De Mestieri, Compilato Da Francesco Griselini
Griselini, Francesco
Fassadoni, Marco
Paperback
$31.19
Dictionnaire Historique Et Bibliographique AbrÃ(c)gÃ(c) Des Personnages Illustres, CÃ(c)lèbres Ou Fameux
Peignot, Gabriel
Paperback
$39.94
Bhagavad Gītā Concordance: A Comprehensive Word Reference with English and Sanskrit Indexes
Schweig, Graham M.
Hardcover
$120.00
Writing a War of Words: Andrew Clark and the Search for Meaning in World War One
Mugglestone, Lynda
Hardcover
$62.34
The Language of Colour in the Bible: Embodied Colour Terms Related to Green
Angelini, Anna
García Ureña, Lourdes
Valeriani, Emanuela
Hardcover
$221.84
A New Law Dictionary, Intended For General Use As Well As For Gentlemen Of The Profession
Burn, Richard
Paperback
$42.44
Neuman and Baretti's Dictionary of the Spanish and English Languages ...: English and Spanish
Neuman, Henry
Paperback
$37.44
Diccionario De Antigüedades Del Reino De Navarra Con Adiciones; Volume 3
Miranda, José Yanguas Y.
Paperback
$37.44
All the Knowledge in the World: The Extraordinary History of the Encyclopedia
Garfield, Simon
Hardcover
$28.49
Vocabolario dantesco: o. Dizionario critico e ragionato della Divina commedia di Dante Alighieri, ora per la prima volta recato in italiano da G. Carb
Blanc, Ludwig Gottfried
Carbone, Giuno
Paperback
$33.69
Dizionario Delle Arti E De Mestieri, Compilato Da Francesco Griselini
Griselini, Francesco
Fassadoni, Marco
Hardcover
$46.19
Novum Lexicon Manuale Graeco-latinum Et Latino-graecum, Volume 1...
Hederich, Benjamin
Patrick, Samuel
Pinzger, Gustav
Paperback
$43.69
Novum Lexicon Manuale Graeco-latinum Et Latino-graecum, Volume 1...
Pinzger, Gustav
Hederich, Benjamin
Patrick, Samuel
Hardcover
$58.69
Vollständiges Wörterbuch Deutsch-Esperanto in drei Bänden. Band 1 (A-G): Plena Vortaro Germana-Esperanto en tri volumoj. Volumo 1 (A-G)
Krause, Erich-Dieter
Hardcover
$105.00
Acquiring a Scientific Vocabulary: A Short Course for Building Lexical Literacy for Advancing AP and College Students
Belmont, Anthony M.
Paperback
$32.44
The Downton Abbey Lexicon Primer: For the Curious American Mind of a British Costume Drama Addict
Jones, Susan Elizabeth
Paperback
$14.40
Abc Tracing Workbook for Pre-K (Ages 4 to 5): Alphabet tracing for preschoolers with fundamental prewriting practice exercises - 120 Tracing letters w
Education, Alphabet Tracing
Paperback
$9.48
My Traceable Alphabet Book: Traceable alphabet letters for preschool, colourable pictures, and more... For Ages 3+
William, Mason
Paperback
$8.39