Chapter 4:
Review for today: text analysis of Chaucer's passage on pg. 176
cross out point 1A on the Middle English handout: reference to OE sounds--it's written confusingly.
Comment on grades in HW text analysis: Below a C: inaccurate information, unclear information, no examples; categories not specified as such. to get a C, you have to have accurate categories mentioned somewhere, and at least one example. B: tended to have good examples but not explicit discussion of them A: categories, multiple examples, good explanation
Comment on relationship between internal and external history
Review social developments: what changes between OE and ME periods?
We're going to start with the internal history of this period. Key events (overhead)
Renaissance
rise of capitalism
printing press
humanist science
All these factors contribute in varying ways to the process of standardization of English, and by the end of this week, you should be able to explain how these contributions worked.
Printing Press:
By 1575, few manuscript books seen
By 1640, over 20,000 ENGLISH books printed
Printing promotes conservatism in language
The printing press had been first set up in England in 1476, by William Caxton (who was English). He printed the first editions of Chaucer, Lydgate, Gower, and Malory; his father may have been a merchant, for in 1438 Caxton was apprenticed in the mercer's guild. But he was in Burge, in the Low Countries, in 1450, where he was a leader of the English community there, and he translated The Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye (1471) from French to English. He went to Germany in to learn printing, and his translation was the first book printed in English. He set up his English printing press just outside London (near Westminister Abbey!) and published about 100 books, mostly in ENGLISH.
He's of interest to us partly because of his printing,which helped to legitimize English and literally set a standard, and also because of his attitudes toward language, which he published in the prefaces to works he published. Our text has an excerpt from the preface to Eneydos (a paraphrase of Virgil's Aeneid that he translated and printed in 1490). He comments there on the changing of the language--someone gave him some old books to translate, and when he read the Old English, he found that it was so "rude and brood that I coulde not wele understande it." It was "more lyke to dutche than englysshe; I coulde not reduce ne brynge it to be understonden. And certynly our langage now used varyeth ferre from that whiche was used and spoken whan I was borne" He's one of the first commentators on the historical nature of language change.
Also points out that there are lots of dialects in English--"the englisysshe that is spoken in one shyre varyeth from a nother"
He also points out that there are objections ot the types of langauge used--he has been criticized in the past for using "curyous" terms, and someone has asked him to use "olde and homely" terms instead! But those "olde and homely" terms are not always understandable.
Caxton made changes in Malory that showed the influence of their "olde and homely" original--but he tended to leave Chaucer alone, since Chaucer, "for his ornate wrytyng in our tongue may wel have the name of a laureate poete. For to fore that he by hys labour embelysshyed, ornated, and made faire our Englisshe, in thys royame was had rude speche & incongrue, as yet it appiereth by olde bookes whyche at thys day ought not to have place ne be compared emong to hys beauteuous volumes and ornate writynges."
So printing presses, and the increased availability of books, are increasing an awareness of language as something that is variable, and as something that changes.
What do you make of the egg example in our text? What's motivating Caxton?
But books, and the ideas they disseminate, are largely ineffective unless people can read. And we find that, on the whole, literacy rates are increasing as time marches on.
B. Literacy Rates Increase
By 1660s, 33-50% of population could read (but note that in 1509, only 1% of adult women were literate, 10% by 1600, and it's well into the 1800s before 50% of women are literate). Universal education in Britain is not until the 1870s
In addition to increased availability of books, and increased numbers of people who could read the books, there are some other political and economic activities that will have effects on language. The world was becoming a smaller place, people were becoming more and more aware of different types of people, transportation was becoming easier.
C. The Renaissance and Humanist Science
Caused great interest in the classics. Revival of study, and this led to the increase in humanist science as well. We'll treat the impact of humanist science more on Thursday; for today. But the impact of the Renaissance interest in the classics, and the flowering of art that resulted, has a linguistic impact as well: the notion that maybe, just maybe, English could become as "eloquent" as Latin.
This led to LOTS of new words--borrowings, old words revitalized.
And it was not without criticism.
Let's consider some primary sources:
From Sir Thomas Elyot's 1531 The Governour, a manual dedicated to King Henyrr VIII, written to educate those who would be occupied at court. New (at the time) words are italicized:
I late consideringe (most excleent prince and myne onely redoughted soveraigne lorde) my duetie that I owe to my naturall contray with my faythealso of aliegeaunce and othe...I am (as God juge me) violently stered to devulgate or sette fourth some part of my studie, trustyinge therby tacwuite me of my dueties to God, your hyghnesses, and this my contray. Wherfore takinge comfort and boldenesse, partly of your graces moste benevolent inclination towarde the universall weale of your subjectes, partly inflamed with zele, I have now enterprised to describe in our vulgare tunge the fourme of a juste publike weale:....Whice attemptate is nat of presumption to teache any persone...but onely to the intent that men which wil be sutious about the weale publike may fynde the thinge therto expedient compendiously writen. And for as moch as this present boke treatehte of the education of them that hereafter may be demed worthy to be goverhours of the publicke weale under your hyghnesse.....I dedicate it unto your hyghnesse as the fyrste frutes of my studye, verely trusytnge that your most excellent wysedome wyll therein esteme my loyall harte and diligent endevour...Protestinge unto your excellent jamestie that where I commended herin any one vertue of dispraise any one vice I meane the generall description of thone and thother without any particular meanynge to the reproche of any one person
Wherfore I am constrained to usurpe a latine worde...which worde, though it be strange and darke [obscure], yet...ones brought in custome, shall be facile to understande as other wordes late commen out of Italy and Fraunce...Therfore that worde maturitie is translated to the actis of man...reservyng the wordes "ripe" and "redy" to frute and other thinges separate from affaires, as we have nowe in usage. And this do I now remembre for the necessary augmentation of our langage.
Sir John Checke (1561)
I am of this opinion that our own tung shold be written cleane and pure, unmixt and unmangeled with borowing of other tunges, whrin if we take not heed by tijmjm, ever borowing and never payeng, she shall be fain to keep her house as bankrupt. For then doth our tunge naturallie and praisablie utter her meaning when she bouroweth no counterfeitness of other tunges to attire her self withall, but useth plainlie her own, with such shift, as nature, craft, experiens and folowing of other excellent doth lead her unto, and if she want at ani tijm (as being unperfight he must) yet let her borow with suche bashfulnes, that it mai appeer, that if either the mould of out own tung could serve us to fascion a woord of our own, or if the old denisoned wordes could content and ease this neede, we wold not boldly venture of unknowen wordes.
Thomas Wilson, The Arte of Rhetoriquie (1553)
Among all other lessons this should first be learned, that wee never affect any straunge ynkehorne terms, but to speake as is commonly received: neither seeking to be over fine, nor yet livng over-carelesse, using our speeche as most men doe, and ordering our wittes as the fewerst have done. Some seeke so far for outlandish English, that they forget altogether their mothers language. And I dare sweare this, if some of their mothers were alive, thei were not able to tell what they say: and yet these fine English clerkes will say, they speake in their mother tongue, if a man should charge them for counterfeiting the Kings English. Some farre journeyed gentlemen at their returne home, like as they love to goe in farraine apparell, so thei wil pouder their talke with oversea language. He that commeth lately out of Fraunce will talke Frency English and never blush at the matter. An other chops in with English Italientated, and applieth the Italian phrase to our English speaking, the which is, as if an Oratour that professeht to utter his mind in plaine Latine, would needes speake Poetries, and farre fetched colours of straunge antiquitie....The unlearned or foolish phtasticall, that smelles but of learning (such fellowes as have seen learned men in their daies) wil so Latin theri tongues, that the simple ca not but wonder at their talke, and thinke surely they speake by some revelation. I know them that thinke Rhetorique to stande wholie upon darke wordes, and hee that can catche an ynke horne terme by the taile, him they coumpt to be a fine Englisheman, and a good Rhetorician. And the rather to set out this foly, I will add suche a letter as William Sommer himselfe, could not make a better for that prupose. Some will thinke and sweare it too, that there was never any such thing written: well, I will not force any man to beleeve it, but I will say thus much, and abide by it too, the like have been made heretofore, and praised above the Moone.
A letter devised by a Lincolneshire man, for a voyde benefice, to a gnetleman that then watied upon the Lorde Chauncellour, for the time being.
Pondering, expending1, and revoluting with my selfe, your ingent2 affabilitie, and ingenious capacity for mundaine affaires: I cannot be celebrate, extol your magnifical exteritie above all other. For how could you have adepted3 such illustrate prerogative, and dominicall superioritie, if the fecunditie of your ingenie4 had not been so fertile and wonderfull pregnant. Now therefore being accersited5 to such splendente renoume and dignitie splendidious: I doubt not but you will adjuvate6 such poor adnichilate7 orphanes, as whilome ware condisciples8 with you, and of antique familiaritie in Lincolneshire. Among whom I being a scholasticall panion9, obtestate10 your sublimitie, to extoll mine infimrities. There is a Sacerdotall dignities in my native Countrey, contiguate to me, where I now contemplate: which your worshipfull benignitie could sone impetrate11 for mee, if it would like you to extend your sedules, and collacude12 me in them to the right honoruable Lord Chauncellor, or rather archgrammacian of Englande. You know my literature, you knowe the pastorall promotion. I obtestate your clemencie, to invigilate13 thus much for me, according to my confidence, and as you know my condigen merites for such a compendious living. But now I relinquish to fatigate your intelligence, with any more frivolous verbositie, and therfore he that rules the climates, be evermore your beautreux, your fortresse, and your bulwarke. Amen.
Dated at my Dome14, or rather Mansion place in Lincolnshire, the penulte of the moneth Sextile. Anno Millimo, quillimo, trillimo.
Per me Johannes Octo.
What wiseman reading this Letter, will not take him for a very Caulf that made it in good earnest, and thought by his ynke pot terms to get a good Parsonage?
1. Weighing mentally (L. Expendere) 2. Huge (L. Ingens) 3. Attained (L. Adeptus) 4. Min, intellect (L. Ingenium) 5. Brought (L. Accersitus) 6. Aid (L. Adjuvare) 7. Reduced to hothing (l. Ad nihil) 8. Fellow students 9. Companion 10. Call upon (l. Obtestari, to call upon as a witness) 11. Procure (l. Impetrare) 12 recommend 13. Be watchfull 14. House (l. domus)
Richard Verstegan, A Restitution of Decayed Intelligence (1605)
for myne own parte, I hold them deceaued that think our speech bettered by the aboundance of our dayly borrowed words, for they beeing of an other nature and not originally belonging to our language, do not neither can they in our toung, beare their natural and true deryuations, and therefore as wel may we fetch woords from the Ethiopians or East or West Indiana, and thrust them into our langauge and baptise all by the name of English, as those which we daily take from the Latin, or langauges thereon depending: and heer-hence it cometh (as by often experience is found) that some Englishmen discoursing togheter, others beeing present and of our own nation, and that naturally speak the English toung, are not able to vnderstand what the others say, notwithstanding they call it English that they speak.
(He wanted to replace prayer with bead, fowls with fuglas, marriage with gyfta, cross, with rood, etc.)
What attitudes get played out in these sources? Also note in your texts the Wilkins quotation on pg. 142 on the excellence of Greek and Latin--another perspective there.
(Side note on Eliot: his idea of good English, if English was really necessary, was that people should only English "which is cleane, polite, perfectly, and articulately pronounced, omitting no letter or sillable as foolish women often times do of a wantonness, wherby diverse noble men and gentilmen['s children (as I do at this day know) have attained corrupte and foul pronunciation")
Thursday, 9 October DICTIONARIES and the impact of science
Review Question: Main dates (or big events, ordered, if you're not sure of the date) that affect the development of language in what's now England.
Review of the emergence of English:
1204: King John loses Normandy
after John, his son Henry III reigns until late 1200s:
anti-immigrant tension rises
1250: English nobility speaking French and increasingly English
borrowing of CENTRAL French words begins to rise markedly
French used in law, Parliament, public negotiations, husbandry manuals
1362: English used in courts
1396: French books for travellers and businesspeople
1399: Henry IV claims throne in English
1400s: attempts to preserve French (regulations about the study or speaking of French in monasteries and universities)
1400: English letters appear
1450: English used in the House of Lords
1550s social distinctions appear between rural and urban English
1600s writings appear arguing for the superiority of Saxon words
1576 titles being used with greater caution
1586 advice book gives advice about when to use you vs. Thou
1640s Civil War
1660 Restoration
So, we've entered a period with great social upheaval, economic development, erosion of social classes and creation of more social classes. Upward mobility is a possibility--which many people find troubling. This is reflected in controversy about prounouns and titles, as well as styles of dress.
Rise of capitalism/growing social consciousness
Note: book talks about pronoun use, thee/thou/you. This would be a good final project, looking at pronoun use in some old texts.
Let's take a step back and look at the big social picture :
medieval notion: nobles, clerics, everyone else
Elizabethan: Population of 4-5.5 million near end of 16th century.
Gentlemen titled people (80 or so);
those w/coats of arms, which could be inherited or more often purchased (end 15th c., ~5-6,000; end 16th., ~7-8,000) (anyone who could live without manual labour) Maybe 2-3% of population--50% of the land!; the nobility controlled another 15%. Right to govern depending on owning land!
citizens: municipal officers (not much larger than the gentlemen)--people who did commerce until they could buy a coat of arms.
Yeomen: free men (No obligation to work for someone else); farming, and income. 5 % of the rural population
Artificers Laborers no status, no land, no say in governance., no yearround income
But, b/c of social mobility, the artificers get to move up a rung.
Attacks on clothing resemble those of language:
Stubbs:
But now there is such a confused mingle mangle of apparell in England, and such preposterous excesse therof, as every one is permitted to flaunt it out in what apparell he lust himselfe, or can get by anie kind of meanse So that it is verie hard to knowe who is noble, who is worshipfull, who is a gentleman, who is not; for you shall have those which are neither of the nobylitie, gentilitie, nor yeomanry; no, nore yet anie Magistrate, or Officer in the common welth (guild people) go daylie in silkes, velvets, satens, damasks, taffeties, and such like, notwithstanding that they be both base by byrth, mean by estate, & servile by calling. This is a great confusion & a general disorder. God be mercyfull unto us!
Linguistic Attitudes
Why am I so interested in this? John Simon is a current langague writer who objects to other people's usages. He explains why people say "Between you and I": "By a kind of dreadful linguistic social climbing,[those who say between you and I] decide that I is always a finer, classier, more educated word than me and attests invariabley to refinement, learnedness, breeding; whereup between you and me, for you and me, and all the res get I's sprinkled all over them like cheap perfume. What ignorance began, snobbery finished off." These attitudes are common. And they're WRONG.
But they trace back centuries.
Other ways that status was marked in langaue was titles.
The social hierarchy was denoted not simply by dress, but also by language. Titles were very important. It was best, then as now, to err on the side of being too polite:
"If wee meete w/a man, we never sawe before: with whome, uppon some occasion, it behoves us to talke: without cramming wel his worthines, most commonly, that wee may not offend in to litle, we give him to much, and call him Gentleman, and other while Sir, althoughe he be but some Souter (shoemaker) or Barbar, or other suche stuffe: and all bycause he is appareled neate, somewhat gentleman lyke. (1576--blue book, 84)
The titles that were used:
Gentlemen: Mr./Master + last name (Dame for women) (also your worship)
Citizen/Merchants: Mr./Master + last name
Yeoman: Goodman + last name
The rest: first name
Titles were very problematic. First complaints about the way people used language (as opposed to how they sounded) were about titles. In 1555:
most men desire the title of worship, but few do worke the dedes that unto worship do apparteigne, yea the merchantman thinketh not himselfe well used unless he be called one of the worshipful sort of merchants, of whom the handicraftman (guild) hath taked example, and looketh to be called master, whos father and grandfather were wont to be called good men. Thus through the title of mastershipp most men covet to climbe the steppes of worship which titel, had wont to appartatine to gentlemen only, and men of office and estimation....These men ought to be called worship full unworthie, for that they have crept into the degree of worshippe without worthines neither brought thereunto by valiency nor virtue. Their fathers was contented to be called goodmen, John, or Thomas and now they are every town meeting are called worshipfull Squires.
Over the course of the Elizabethan and Jacobean reigns, these titles got more and more confused. Generally speaking, when we have access to rent records in different churches, we find that the people who paid the highest rents tend to be recorded as "Mr." But even among the lowest rents--presumably the lowest social class--the title of Mr. begins to appear, presumably because people were changing their modes of dress and manipulating their social status. Eventually the title of Mr. or master becomes generalized--and goodman becomes, if anything, the stigmatized title. The most frequently criticized group is the up-and-coming-artificer, the shoeman, the tailor, the goldsmith. Frequently described as being overreaching.
So by near 1600, "master" has been generalized as a title, as has sir, dame, lady
Part of the response to this was to call to Standardize, Repair, and Fix the Language. Review features of Standardization (From your text):
Refining/Repairing the Language
Jonathan Swift (also Dean Swift) is an important figure in the 17th/18th century debates about language use. This is a period in which many of the leading writers were involved in a very public debate about the nature of the English language. Swift, John Dryden, Milton, Samuel Johnson and others engaged in a vigorous debate about the ways in which English needed to be changed, codified, and standardized. Remember, the thrust of this debate was that the language needed to be ascertained, or standardized; it needed to be refined or repaired, to remove impurities; and it needed to be fixed, so that its decline could be arrested and it could be permanently placed in a glorious position.
The idea that the language needed repairing brought with it an idea that English had fallen away from its own golden age. Dryden looked back to Chaucer, Swift looked back to Renaissance English, and later writers (including Noah Webster) would look back to the age of Swift! Remember how much linguistic anxiety there was in the Renaissance period--this golden age of language is a fiction, a myth that serves to reinforce the notion that current language is plagued by illness. This notion recurs throughout history--be on the lookout for it as we move forward through time.
What sorts of things were wrong with the language? Swift objected to three kinds of linguistic innovations: clipping, which is the process of shortening a word, which seemed to be particularly popular in the 17th century, although it is still common today; contracting verbs, which caused "jarring sounds" and created a surplus of monosyllables in the language [note: in previous ages, and in other arguments, English monosyllables are said to be better than polysyllabic words, especially those borrowed from French or Latin]; and trendy words (illustrated in a letter from the Tatler on pg. 255-56 in B&C). And guess where many of these trendy words were used? In University language! Again....an old argument that pops up again and again over time. Note that the end of the B&C chapter, paragraphs 205 ff. deals with vocabulary more fully, describing some of the words that Swift objected to because they were pleonastic such as unto, nowadays, or square. The debate over foreign borrowings continued: Dryden noted "We meet daily with those fops who value themselves on their travelling, and pretend they cannot express their meaning in English, because they would put off on us some French phrase of the last edition, without considering that, for aught they know, we have a better of our own."
So Swift and many others prominent writers, fearing that the English language was endangered by such problems, decided that the language should be repaired, and then fixed. Swift noted that it was difficult for writers "to be limited in time as much as in place by the perpetual variations of our speech" (B&C 257).
What was the best way to accomplish both the repair and the fixing of English? An English Academy, similar to the ones established in France and Italy. Italy's academy had been founded in 1582, France's in 1600s, and both produced dictionaries of their respective tongues.
Voices had called for an English academy as early as 1572. After the Restoration, however, talk of the academy intensified--remember the great amount of anxiety that peaked during the political upheaval. The academy would seem to be the answer to this anxiety--a body of people who could decide these thorny questions of spelling reform, usage, and approve new words.
The Royal Society (founded in 1662, remember), set up a committee in 1664 to "improve the English language." Its members included John Dryden. This committee came up with some ambitious plans, including the publication of an English grammar, spelling reform (which would particularly focus on unnecessary letters), translation projects, and a dictionary. This committee apparently held only 3 or 4 meetings, and its plans were never begun.
Dryden, however, continued to be an enthusiastic advocate of an academy, as Daniel Defoe. Defoe, in 1697, wanted to have an academy composed of 12 gentlemen, 12 nobles, and 12 [men, presumably] of merit.
Swift's 1712 proposal for the academy began by explaining that
our language is imperfect, that its daily improvements are by no means in proportion to its daily corruptions; that the pretenders to polish and refine it have chiefly multiplied abuses and absurdities; and that in many instances it offends against every part of grammar.
Note that some of these arguments are familiar--and that it's impossible for language to become ungrammatical. Native speakers always speak grammatically--it's usage that gets objected to by these commentators.
B&C show one response to Swift, from John Oldmixon, who pointed out that it's impossible to stop language from changing--although he didn't mind the idea of an academy, he just didn't' like Swift's. The academy never came to pass, though.
Grammars
The other type of reference work that got produced was grammars. After 1760, a big burst of enthusiasm for writing grammars for English people. Some important grammars: Joseph Priestly's The Rudiments of English Grammar and Robert Lowth's Short Introduction to English Grammar, and in America (which we'll get to in a few weeks), Noah Webster's A Grammatical Institute of the English Language. B&C also discuss rhetoricians, people like Thomas Sheridan, who didn't write grammars but did write other sorts of treatises.
The grammars set out to fix the standard, to provide a reference work that would settle disputes. In one sense, they set out to be descriptive, and then in other ways, they were prescriptive. Choices had to be made about the right way to use language. No ambiguity, no context--just right rules. The debates over whether to use shall/will, or the case following than, or different from/than, between you and I/me, all get written up in grammars of the day.
These issues were to be settled by three things:
reason, etymology, and Greek or Latin
The appeal of rationality is important here. Reason, it was thought, could decide all issues. So in constructions like "the meter is running" the participle (an active thing, drawn from a verb) could be objected to in a passive construction; I am mistaken could not mean I am wrong.
Etymology: etymology tells us what the word means. To unloose, should mean to tie, since untie, means to loose. Or dilapidated, presumably, or disaster, should have different meanings.
Latin and Greek examples: split infinitives
Joseph Priestly, however, noted that the grammarians went overboard. A grammar will never be compiled "By the arbitrary rules of any man, or body of men whatever...it must be allowed, that the custom of speaking is the original and only just standard of any language. We see, in all grammars, that this is sufficient to establish a rule" (B&C 278).
Johnson's Dictionary
Samuel Johnson published his dictionary of the English language in 1755. Johnson wrote:
Those who have been persuaded to think well of my design, require that it should fix our language, and put a stop to those alterations which time and chance have hitherto been suffered to make in it without opposition. With this consequence I will confess that I flattered myself for a while; but not begin to fear that I have indulged expectation which neither reason nor experience can justify. When we see men grow old and die at a certain time one after another, from century to century, we laugh at the elixir that promises to prolong life to a thousand years; and with equal justice may the lexicographer be derided, who being able to produce no example of a nation that has preserved their words and phrases from mutability, shall imagine that his dictionary can embalm his language, and secure it from corruption and decay, that it is in his power to change sublunary nature, or clear the world at once from folly, vanity, and affectation"
With this hope, however, academies have been instituted, to guard the avenues of their languages. to retain fugitive, and repulse intruders; but their vigilance and activity have hitherto been vain; sounds are too volatile and subtile for legal restraints; to enchain syllables, and to lash the wind, are equally the undertakings of pride, unwilling to measure its desires by its strength"(B&C 274).
Other factors that lead to the decline of the academy idea include a reluctance to submit to regulation. Thomas Priestly also had the notion that "the best forms of speech will, in time, establish themselves by their own superior excellence; and, in all controversies, it is better to wait the decisions of time, which are slow and sure, than to take those of synods, which are often hasty and injudicious" (B&C 265)
So, instead of an academy, we got reference books:
Johnson's preface notes that language change is a normal thing. "Commerce, however necessary, however lucrative, as it depraves the manner, corrupts the language; they that have frequent intercourse with strangers, to whome they endeavour to accomodate themselves, must in time learn a mingled dialect....[which will be] at last incorporated with the current speech" (S 29). Also class distinctions make language change. "Those who have much leisure to think, will always be enlarging the stock of ideas, and every increase of knowledge, whether real or fancied, will produce new words, or combinations of words" (S 29). Science, too, produces changes, as does translation (in fact, Johnson wanted people to stop translators taking liberties more than he wanted them to make grammars).
Johnson's dictionary, as you can see in Cable, offers some quotations, no guide to pronunciation, and opinions on usage.
another cause of problems in the language:
is a foolish opinion, advanced of late Years, that we ought to spell exactly as we speak; which beside the obvious Inconvenience of utterly destroying our Etymology, would be a thing we should never see an End of. Not only the several Towns and Counties of England have a different way of Pronouncing, but even here in London, they clip their Words after one Manner about the Court, another in the City, and a third in the Suburbs; and in a few Years, it is probably, will all differ from themselves, as Fancy or Fashion shall direct: All which reduced to Writing would entirely confound Orthography. Yet many People are so found of this Conceit, that it is sometimes a difficult matter to read modern Books and Pamphlets; where the Words are so curtailed, and varied from their original Spelling, that whoever hat been used to plain English, will hardly know them by sight. (S 132)
Obviously, the time was ripe for a dictionary, and Dr. Johnson stepped forward to take on this project.
The dictionaries you saw in the handouts were word books, essentially, of "hard usuall words," like Cawdrey's (1604). This rise of dictionaries is connected to.......what do you think? [ solicit opinions on what social forces after 1600 would have contributed to the publication of dictionaries full of scholarly words--it was a function of social anxiety, desire to imitate better language].
Johnson's dictionary contract was signed in 1746; he was to be paid 1,575, pounds, in instalments, and he set up a dictionary workshop in London.
Johnson had 6 assistants, (5 Scots, 1 expert in "low cant phrases," and one Englishman), who worked with him. The attic workshop had a long table running down the middle of it, at which the clerks worked standing up. Working in about 80 large notebooks, WITHOUT A LIBRARY, Johnson wrote definitions of more than 40,000 words, using some 114,000 quotations from Renaissance and modern writings. He did not necessarily work on originality, sometimes taking other dictionary definitions when it suited him.
We looked last time at the preface to his dictionary, where he explained that language changes (however regrettably). He looked at language in a more complex way than had previous lexicographers--he separated words into different senses, for instance, and he provided quotations.
Some of his definitions are worth noting:
Lexicographer: A writer of dictionaries, a harmless drudge.
Patron: One who countenances, supports, or protects. Commonly a wretch who supports with insolence, and is paid with flattery.
Pension: An allowance made to anyone without an equivalent. In English it is generally understood to mean pay given to a state hireling for treason to his country.
Whigs: The name of a faction
Yet many of his definitions are very clear, almost modern:
Heart: The muscle which by its contraction and dilation propels the blood through the course of circulation. Although that entry goes on to add, "it is supposed in popular language to be the seat sometimes of courage, sometimes of affection.
Look at some of the definitions here, with quotations: (show overhead)
Also look at the precision involved in some definitions. Look at all the senses provided for thought, which is a difficult word to define.
The dictionary was published in 1755, 8 years after it began, which is really a remarkable pace given the decades that it takes to produce later works. Johnson was hailed all over Europe for producing the first big English dictionary. An Italian lexicographer wrote, the dictionary "will be a perpetual monument of Fame to the Author, an Honour to his own Country in particular, and a general Benefit to the Republic of Letters throughout Europe" (S 135). Johnson's work was considered particularly impressive because it went so quickly--after all, the French academy had taken 40 lexicographers 40 years to produce the French dictionary.
David Garrick, the English actor, noted:
And Johnson, well arm'd like a hero of yore,
Has beat forty French, and will beat forty more
Johnson's dictionary was a force, as he explained in the introduction, in "setting the orthography, displaying the analogy, regulating the structures, and ascertaining the significations of English words" (S 135).
The Oxford English Dictionary
I want to skip ahead about a hundred years and talk about James Murray, the general editor of the OED. (all page refs here to Caught in the Web of Words).
Murray was the son of a village tailor and his mother was the daughter of the tailor who could produce the finest table linen of the time. He was a Borderer, born in very southern Scotland, in Hawick, who left school at age 14, worked on farms and was very self-educated, a voracious reader who studied geology, plants, dialect varieties, and languages (French, Italian, German, Greek, to some degree). In a magazine he bought in 1852, Popular Educator, he wrote on the flyleaf "knowledge is power" and then added nihil est melius quam vita diligentissima (preface). He became an asst. schoolmaster at 17, founded the Hawick Archaeological Society, learned OE, studied phonetics, natural science....got married, moved to London to find a better climate for his wife, and when his wife died, he remarried 2 yrs later and had 11 children. (names like Oswyn, Hilda, Rosfrith, and Aelfric!)
He met A.J. Ellis (pronunciation guru and spelling reformer) and through him Henry Sweet (H Higgins!) and was invited to read to the Philological Society!. In 1870 became a schoolmaster again (formerly a bank clerk). Opened a scriptorium behind his house and eventually got asked to edit the dictionary. His pupils loved him (and also loved that he was easily distractible, especially if their homework was not done! One wrote:
His classes were always intensely interesting. You never knew where you might arrive before the lesson was done. A nominal geography class might easily develop into a lecture on Icelandic roots, and we often tried to bring him back to the days when the Finnish landed on the shores of the Baltic, in occasions when we had not given adequate time to the preparation of our set lesson. Then the tricks he could play with words. Such was his skill and knowledge that many of us firmly believed that by Grimm's law he could prove that BLACK really was the same word as WHITE; at least that was how it seemed to our poor intelligences. 113
As he progressed in his work with the Philological Society, he was regarded as the leading living authority on Scottish dialects, on phonetics in general, and on historical languages. His academic career was hampered by the fact that he had no degree, however, so he set about taking the university exams in 1871, which he passed easily. His father's death prevented him from taking one set of exams, however, which prevented him from receiving a degree with honors, which was galling--and also a problem. But 2 years later, he had enough publications that he pressed Scottish friends to get either Edinburgh or St. Andrews University to award him an honorary degree. Finally, Edinburgh decided to award the degree, and James brother Charles, who heard the news on 1 April, wrote "It should not be all Fools day when wise men do a wise deed!" and Ellis wrote "What an Easter egg! Hip Hip Hip Hurrah! And a happy Hatching" Furnivall merely pointed out that now he'd not need to take time away from his research to get another degree.
He was knighted in 1908, awarded a doctorate by Oxford in 1914.
The Philological Society wanted to publish A Big Dictionary of English--since Johnson, Webster's 1828 American dictionary was the most important one English dictionaries had notoriously bad etymologies in them. The PS had started collecting words. Principles: be a historian, not a critic; collect all words, rather than select good words; use quotations to show changing senses, not to define words.
Herbert Coleridge started editing the dictionary (he caught e chill sitting in damp clothes at a PS lecture) then Furnivall took over:
We have set ourselves to form a National Portrait Gallery, not only for the worthies, but of all the members, of the race of English words which is to form the dominant speech of the world. No winged messenger who bears to us the thoughts an aspirations, the weakness and the littleness, of our forefathers; who is to carry ours to our descendants; is to be absent, -
Fling our doors wide! all, all, not one, but all must enter; for their service let them be honoured, and though the search for them may sometimes seem wearisome, the labor of the ingathering more irksome still, yet the work, is worthy and the aim unselfish; Let us the, persevere. 137.
1879, Clarendon Press finally agrees to produce the Big Dictionary, and Murray finally agrees to be editor, after much wrangling with several publishers and behind the scenes politicking in the PS. Murray promised 800 pgs. a year, which he always knew he couldn't meet.
More than 1000 volunteer readers worked--this was an uneven method of proceeding, but it worked eventually. Overhead of slip. Even his children pressed into service, as soon as they could read! But the volunteer readers could be divided into "the good, the bad, the indifferent and the dishonourable who returned nothing--not even the book" The letter O nearly didn't get sent in! Mr. Crane, of Brixton, was quite irresponsible, and didn't want to return the slips. Another produced 1000 quotations from a book called Modern Egyptians, but only 2 were useful, the rest Arabic terms not used in English ;another found a botanical book unsuitable for reading b/c it was "just descriptions of flowers" (183). So James had to constantly recruit new volunteers and he maintained their morale, consoling them, if necessary, that their quotations had not been used. They checked! Many women were readers (185) and as their numbers grew, the Scriptorium became famous.
The slips were handled as follows:
1. checked for error (omission of full reference! or spelling mistake, easily settled)
2. alphabetized
3. more careful sorting, of words spelt the same into different parts of speech or senses
4. quotations chronologically ordered
5. sub-editor did various changes of meaning and make a preliminary definition
6. arrange bundles in historical order
7. Editor did etymology, pronunciation, and select best quotations
The dictionary is unique for its historical method (overhead)
Murray was convinced of his project's importance.
If literary men and students of English in any department, had the faintest conception of the amazing and enormous light which the Dictionary is going to throw upon the history of words and idioms, they would work with enthusiasm to hasten its appearance...If you desire no credit and feel no interest in helping my work I can do without you, weep not for me, weep for yourselves and your children.
But he also had a dream, he claimed, about Boswell and Johnson. Boswell asked Johnson, "What would you say, Sir, if you were told that in a hundred years' time a bigger and better dictionary than yours would be compiled by a Whig? Johnson grunted. "A Dissenter." Johnson stirred in his chair. "A Scotsman." Johnson began, "sir..." but Boswell persisted- 'and that the University of Oxford would publish it." "sir," thundered Johnson, "in order to be facetious it is not necessary to be indecent." (188).
So how was the dictionary handled? Varied pronunciations were given.
Language is mobile and liable to change, and...a very large number of words have two or more pronunciations current..and given life and variety to language...it is a free country, and a mean may call a vase a vawse, a vahse, a vaze, as he pleases. And why should he not? We do not all think alike, walk alike, dress alike, write alike, or dine alike, why should not we use out liberty in speech also, as long s the purpose of speech, to be intelligible, and its grace, are not interfered with? (189).
He disappointed spelling reformers in not adopting a simplified spelling system to represent pronunciation(they'd hoped it would have gained respectability for their ideas, or at least helped it bemuse an alternative orthography.
Show his pronunciation key. (overhead)
He worried about compounds (read letter to Ellis--make overhead).
But what is the English language? (more from pg. 193, intro to the OED)--overhead from pg. 194
A-ANT came out in 1884, 1888 saw the end of B. So there was great debate about what to do. Suggestions flew around for ways to reduce vocabulary (APPENDICTIS eliminated--although became very popular when King Edward VII's coronation postponed in 1902 b/c of it. Oh well.) Murray finally quits teaching and edits full time. Delays continued. C produced in 1895, 3 years after the whole thing should have been finished. Subscribers were getting unhappy. (picture pg. 260). Eventually they began publishing the dictionary in short segments, in parts of letters, and new editors were hired to assist Murray.. Henry Bradley would take over some words.
Skeat wrote a poem at the end of D:
I'm glad that you've done--so I hear you say--
With words that begin with D--
And have left H.B. to be Glad and Gay
With the Glory that waits on G:
And you laugh, Ha! Ha! defying fate,
As you tackle the terrible aspirate
************
We all rejoice, on this New Year's day
To hear you are fairly upon your way
To Honour and Happiness, Hope, and Health
I would you were nearer to Worldly Wealth!
Murray died in 1915, and the whole dictionary did not appear until 1928, 70 years after the PS had resolved to begin a dictionary. Finished in 1933 with the supplement, and then a four part supplement was done in 1972, and a second edition came out a few years ago, on CD ROM, and on-line at Bloomington.
The press announcement:
The superiority of the Dictionary to all other English Dictionaries in accuracy and completeness, is everywhere admitted. The Oxford Dictionary is the supreme authority, and without a rival. It is perhaps less generally appreciated that what makes the Dictionary unique is its historical methods; it is a Dictionary not of our English, but of all English: the English of Chaucer, of the Bible, and of Shakespeare is unfolded in it with the same wealth of illustration as is devoted to the most modern authors. When considered in this light, the fact that the first part of the Dictionary was published 1884 is seen to be relatively unimportant; 44 years is a small period in the life of a language. 313
And a tribute to Murray:
At the beginning Sir JAMES MURRAY laid the lines and drew he plan of the Dictionary, and when it is completed half the printed pages will be his; the Delegates acknowledge the debt which they, and with them the University and the world of scholarship, owe to the unremitting labour and the distinguished skill of the original editor of the dictionary. 313
James saw the Dictionary as an act of God (quotation on pg. 341)
Some material from overheads appears below:
Timeline issues
1204: King John loses Normandy
after John, his son Henry III reigns until late 1200s: anti-immigrant tension rises
after 1250:
English nobility speaking French and increasingly English
borrowing of CENTRAL French words begins to rise markedly
French used in law, Parliament, public negotiations, husbandry manuals
1362: English used in courts
1396: French books for travelers and businesspeople
1399: Henry IV claims throne in English
1400s: attempts to preserve French (regulations about the study or speaking of French in monasteries and universities)
English letters appear
1450: English used in the House of Lords1550s social distinctions appear between rural and urban English
1600s writings appear arguing for the superiority of Saxon words. Latin, Greek, vernacular controversies
1576 titles being used with greater caution
1586 advice book gives advice about when to use you vs. thou
1640s Civil War
1660 Restoration
THE OED: The Letter C took up 1,308 pages in first edition , plus 437 pages in first supplement. The entry for Carry was four pages alone!
Total first edition: 15, 487 pages, for 240,165 main words; second edition: 290,500 main words
Johnson's Dictionary , in contrast, had 40,000 words and 114, 000 quotations from the Renaissance forward