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In praise of … old dictionaries In praise of … old dictionaries
(5 months later)
On Shakespeare's birthday on Tuesday, 20,000 World Book Night volunteers will hand out free books. What an affirmation of reading and of real, physical books. But what about old dictionaries? Shelved in some dusty corner of the library, they suffer near-universal neglect. Yet antique dictionaries contain a piquant history. The word homosexual doesn't exist in a 1925 English dictionary. By 1962 it's an adjective; and in 2002's Oxford English Dictionary it's a noun – you can officially be a homosexual. In 1925 the word "welfare" refers to living happily; by 2002 the definition spans half a column, primarily concerning the welfare state. "Womanish", "coloured" and "ethnology" undergo telling changes too, besides hundreds more (the OED is peppered with notes like "now chiefly derogatory"). It will be a long time before homepages match dictionaries for historical narrative. And let's face it: a Kindle will never smell as good.On Shakespeare's birthday on Tuesday, 20,000 World Book Night volunteers will hand out free books. What an affirmation of reading and of real, physical books. But what about old dictionaries? Shelved in some dusty corner of the library, they suffer near-universal neglect. Yet antique dictionaries contain a piquant history. The word homosexual doesn't exist in a 1925 English dictionary. By 1962 it's an adjective; and in 2002's Oxford English Dictionary it's a noun – you can officially be a homosexual. In 1925 the word "welfare" refers to living happily; by 2002 the definition spans half a column, primarily concerning the welfare state. "Womanish", "coloured" and "ethnology" undergo telling changes too, besides hundreds more (the OED is peppered with notes like "now chiefly derogatory"). It will be a long time before homepages match dictionaries for historical narrative. And let's face it: a Kindle will never smell as good.
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