The Duty of a Comprehensive Dictionary
By the late 19th century, there was widespread consensus about what a modern dictionary should look like.
It was to be the work not of a lone obsessive but a team of professionals. It was to be informed by the latest thinking about historical philology. Most important, it was to cover as much of the language as possible. The editors of the Century Dictionary called this “the duty of a comprehensive dictionary.” Dictionary publishers boasted about the number of entries and began pushing the term unabridged. Dictionaries aspired to authority and monumentality.
WHAT’S IN A NOM DE PLUME?
Photo of Mark Twain writing while propped up in bed.
Mark Twain. Letter to John Bellows, a lexicographer in Gloucester, England, April 1883.
Three-page ALS.
If you’re drawn to both pseudonyms and Gallicisms, how do you know whether you use a nom de plume or a nom de guerre? If you’re Mark Twain, you ask the author of a French–English dictionary who inquired whether you’d like to have his book: “I shall be very glad indeed to receive a copy of your book, for Mrs. Clemens will not allow me to keep hers in my study, & somebody long ago stole my own copy—our pastor, I think, who was probably beguiled by its pious aspect.”
Ex coll. Karolyne & Bryan A. Garner. HHD no. 86
OBSCURE LITERARY PR
John Bellows. Dictionary of French and English, English and French. London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1916.
Twain’s letter bears a connection to one of his lesser-known short stories, “Paris Notes”: “When the minister gets up to preach, he finds his house full of devout foreigners, each ready and waiting, with his little book in his hand—a morocco-bound Testament, apparently. But only apparently; it is Mr. Bellows’s admirable and exhaustive little French-English dictionary. . . . The building has been nicknamed ‘The Church of the Gratis French Lesson.’”
Ex coll. Karolyne & Bryan A. Garner. HHD no. 86
PIETY IS NO LAUGHING MATTER
John Bellows carte de visite, by William Gillard of Gloucester. Ca. 1880. Signed obverse and reverse.
In later editions of his dictionary, Bellows noted that nom de guerre means “pseudonym: fictitious.” Then: “Nom de plume is rarely used in French.” So he capitalized on Twain’s letter, even if the “pious aspect” comment of the Twain letter dissuaded his daughter from including it in her 1905 compilation John Bellows: Letters and Memoir. But “pious aspect” had been made the ironic theme of Twain’s story.
Ex coll. Karolyne & Bryan A. Garner. HHD no. 86
HE WHO SURMOUNTETH NO DANGER . . .
William Dwight Whitney. Signed quotation from Hitopadesha (Sanskrit fables). New Haven, Oct. 1867.
William Dwight Whitney, a Yale linguist and Sanskrit scholar, was a major force in American lexicography. At Noah Porter’s instance, he had contributed to Webster-Mahn. He had also written several books on linguistics. His touchstone about dictionaries: “The first duty of a comprehensive dictionary is collection, not selection. . . . Every omission of a genuine English form, even when practically necessary, is so far a defect; and it is therefore better to err on the side of broad inclusiveness than of narrow exclusiveness.”
Ex coll. Karolyne & Bryan A. Garner. HHD no. 88
SERVICEABLE FOR ALL USES
William Dwight Whitney, ed. The Century Dictionary and Encyclopedic Lexicon of the English Language. 6 vols. in 24. New York: Century Co., 1889–1891.
The OED’s American counterpart was Whitney’s Century Dictionary, now little remembered outside lexicographic circles. The plan of the work was threefold: (1) to construct a general dictionary “serviceable for every literary and practical use”; (2) to collect more completely the technical terms of the various sciences, arts, trades, and professions than has been attempted; and (3) to supplement the definitions with encyclopedic matter, including illustrations, that will make a convenient book of general reference. The work is first-rate.
Ex coll. Karolyne & Bryan A. Garner. HHD no. 88
A GUINNESS-WORTHY VOLUME
William Dwight Whitney, ed. The Century Dictionary and Encyclopedic Lexicon of the English Language. New York: Century Co., 1914.
In 1914, a special one-volume version of the Century was produced on ultra-thin India paper, with corduroy covers. It was made to lie flat, with a highly flexible spine that would form itself into an upside-down U. It is undoubtedly the thickest one-volume dictionary ever produced.
Ex coll. Karolyne & Bryan A. Garner. HHD no. 88
RECRUITING THE CLASS OF 1902
“The Great College.” From The Outlook, 1901.
Advertisement for The Century Dictionary.
This advertisement proclaimed: “Over 155,000 sets of The Century Dictionary & Cyclopedia & Atlas have been sold . . . . These volumes . . . are consulted A MILLION TIMES A DAY!” Purchasers were admitted to an institution of higher learning: “The Great College of America is this College in the Home. It has a larger membership than the sum of all the English-speaking universities, for it is composed of ‘Century’ Students, and the Class of 1902 is now forming.”
Ex coll. Karolyne & Bryan A. Garner. HHD no. 88
LOOK THAT UP WHERE?
Isaac Kauffman Funk, ed. A Standard Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. London & Toronto: Funk & Wagnalls, 1894–1895.
The “Laugh-In” Button. Ca. 1969.
The son of Ohio farmers, Isaac Kauffman Funk became a Lutheran pastor and an entrepreneurial religious publisher. With lawyer Adam Wagnalls, he founded the Funk & Wagnalls Company, which produced A Standard Dictionary of the English Language. A staff of hundreds labored for more than three years to produce more than 2,300 triple-column pages of small print. Funk’s initial cost was $1.1 million (more than $36 million today). Frank Vizetelly, a talented lexicographer-colleague, wrote of Funk’s “indefatigable energy and practical scholarship.”
Ex coll. Karolyne & Bryan A. Garner. HHD no. 91
DIVIDING THE PAGE
Photo of William Torrey Harris. Ca. 1905.
William Torrey Harris, ed. Webster’s New International Dictionary. Springfield: G. & C. Merriam Co., 1909.
While serving as superintendent of St. Louis schools in 1878, William Torrey Harris reviewed a Merriam-Webster dictionary. By 1900, he had moved to Massachusetts to bring Webster into the 20th century. Harris innovated the “divided page,” which relegated uncommon and obsolete words to the foot of the page in compact type, making it possible to treat many more terms. The divided page was hailed as a stroke of genius. It would last through Webster’s Second but not through Webster’s Third.
Ex coll. Karolyne & Bryan A. Garner. HHD no. 93
INTRICATE INSTRUCTIONS
“IMPORTANT NOTICE.” Springfield: G. & C. Merriam Co., 1909.
Brochure accompanying Webster’s New International Dictionary.
To accompany its big book, Merriam issued this four-page brochure with redline call-outs to illustrate all the elements of its typographically complex pages. One wonders how many dictionary users heeded the admonition to “read this carefully before beginning to use” the dictionary.
Ex coll. Karolyne & Bryan A. Garner. HHD no. 89
THE CHARMING SCOT
Photo of William Allan Neilson seated with Eleanor Roosevelt. Ca. 1940.
Clipped signature of William Allan Neilson.
William Torrey Harris’s successor as chief editor of Merriam’s flagship dictionary was William Allan Neilson, a Scottish poetry expert and Shakespeare scholar who, in 1917, became president of Smith College. In 1924, he accepted an invitation to become the chief editor of Webster’s Second New International (W2), saying, “There is probably no book that has been written in a hundred years that has done so much . . . for the country at large as [this] Dictionary.”
Ex coll. Karolyne & Bryan A. Garner. HHD no. 100
AN OLD BATTLESHIP STILL IN SERVICE
William Allan Neilson, ed. Webster’s New International Dictionary. Springfield, MA: G. & C. Merriam Co., 1934. 2d ed.
With a staff of more than 300 and an investment of $25 million (in today’s money), Webster’s Second was Merriam-Webster’s most ambitious dictionary project to date. The editors benefited from the recently completed OED, the Century, and Funk & Wagnalls, just as the editors of those works consulted Merriam dictionaries. (The key was to compose entries that were different enough to seem original.) W2 remains one of the greatest dictionaries ever produced, still a favorite of the U.S. Supreme Court.
Ex coll. Karolyne & Bryan A. Garner. HHD no. 100
HOW LEXICOLOGISTS CELEBRATE
“Dinner to Announce the Publication of Webster’s New International Dictionary, Second Edition.” Hotel Kimball, Springfield, Massachusetts, 25 June 1934.
Menu.
Printed proceedings from the event.
Guests commemorating the august publication were given the large menu with their consommé vermicelli and fried breast of chicken. After the fact, in a smaller format, the proceedings were printed, including a list of attendees. At least four of Noah Webster’s descendants attended, including Emily E.F. Skeel, the tireless bibliographer of works by her great-grandfather. These two items, which belonged to one of those relatives, were acquired from materials descended through the Fowler line of the family.
Ex coll. Karolyne & Bryan A. Garner. HHD no. 100