This week: What's a dictionary? We try to figure it out. Then we talk a little trivia, tell a joke, read some footnotes, and we're out. Let's get to it1.
Here's a thought exercise I like to do with my students: What's a dictionary? Without actually looking up the word, tell me what it means to you. It's not as easy as you'd think and I usually get answers that range from the well-considered to the completely absurd2.
The question asks students to do two things:
It asks them to question their assumptions about the words they know: Do you really know this word? Where did you learn this word? Are you relying on translation? How reliable was your source? And so on3.
It asks them how to communicate something that everyone already knows, which begs the question, why are you trying to communicate this? Are you adding anything new to the discussion4? How?
As an exercise, some years it works really well, other years...nothing is ever perfect. So, what is a dictionary? To answer, I'm going to start with the most thorough definition I've ever encountered:
Lexicographic reference work containing dictionary articles related to individual topics or elements of language, and possibly several outer texts as well, which can be consulted if someone needs assistance with text reception, text production or translation or would simply like to know more about a word, part of a word or a combination of words.
The above comes from a paper called, appropriately enough, "What Is a Dictionary" by Henning Bergenholtz in volume 22 of Lexikos5. In the article, Bergenholtz painstakingly tears down definition after definition in working towards the one he presents (above). It's a fascinating process and he does provide a very complete definition but...maybe it's a little too complete? After all, it doesn't exactly roll off the tongue and there's no way I'm going to subject a bunch of undergrads to it.
So, here's our faithful Merriam-Webster:
a reference source in print or electronic form containing words usually alphabetically arranged along with information about their forms, pronunciations, functions, etymologies, meanings, and syntactic and idiomatic uses
Other dictionaries have similar definitions, with the main difference between them being where the stick all the nuances and caveats. For example, Macmillan includes, "it may be monolingual, bilingual, or multilingual" in their main definition while Merriam-Webster buries that bit of information in a sub-definition. As definitions go, these are all fine, but, for simplicity, I think I have to go with the BBC:
A dictionary is a list of words or phrases and their definitions arranged in alphabetical order.
Simple and concise but gets all the major characteristics in there. Excellent. Except. There is one nuance that I stress to my students when I give them my definition (you didn't think I'd tell them to write one without writing my own, did you?) which is, dictionaries are tools. You should be using one, you should be using several, but you should not be relying on it to do the work for you. Just because a word is in the dictionary doesn't mean it is the right word for you or your work.
So, my simple and concise definition:
A dictionary is a tool you can use to find out what a word means and how you can use it.
Is it perfect6? No. Does it contain all the nuance and expertise put forth in Professor Bergenholtz's? Again, no. But, does it work for my classes and does it get students to think a little more deeply about the language they're using? God, I hope so... But, between you and me, Reader, my favorite definition comes from my favorite curmudgeon, Ambrose Bierce, who, in his Devil's Dictionary, defined dictionary as:
A malevolent literary device for cramping the growth of a language and making it hard and inelastic. This dictionary, however, is a most useful work.
Stay curious, learn something.
J
Sidenotes:
Only two things this week, something cool and something funny.
1. From the The Guinness Book of World Records:
The word with the most meanings in English is the verb 'set', with 430 senses listed in the Second Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, published in 1989. The word commands the longest entry in the dictionary at 60,000 words, or 326,000 characters.
2. From Reddit's r/DadJokes:
What do you get if put a copy of Macbeth on top of a dictionary?
A play on words.
This is the awkward bit: I feel obligated to acknowledge that the world is in something of a dumpster fire again and it might feel trivial or irresponsible to read a blog focusing on the trivia of English etymology, and, yeah, I can see that. That said, I don't have any desire to write about the news. There are people far more knowledgeable and far better suited to doing so than I. So, I'm going to keep on keeping on and focus on my lesson plans and my little blog. If the news is at your doorstep and you need to take a break, that's okay. On the other hand, if you need something of a silly distraction, welcome and thank you.
I'm not going to lie. These are my favorite kind of answers; as a teacher, you always want to find those kids because they'll be game for anything. Any weird experiment or strange role-play you want to try, they'll be down for it and usually be funnier and more interesting than I could ever be on my own. Classic class-clown stuff, really. Some of my recent favorites are “an interestingly boring book,” and “like an encyclopedia but without any good pictures.”
This is adapted from a journalism course I took years ago, where the point was to question everything we thought we knew about a story and make sure we had facts, not assumptions.
From a creative writing course. The point here is that we're all telling the same stories over and over again (only 12 plots and all that) so how is yours different? And, to be clear here, this was not intended as a critical statement about someone's work. Rather, the idea is that the author should know what it is they are trying to add to the world, even if it's just a new character in a familiar situation or vice versa.
Lexikos is published by the African Association for Lexicography and is well-worth reading if you're into that sort of thing. The same issue has several articles about students' use of electronic dictionaries in the classroom and discusses some recent research that runs a little counter to the prevailing wisdom.
In Japanese, there are three or four words that can be translated as dictionary. My favorite, which is so old-fashioned as to be borderline archaic, is “jibiki,” which can be transliterated directly as “character-pull,” a definition second only to a synonym given by Merriam-Webster: wordbook.