Abracadabra

Entry of the Day:

Abracadabra in Bailey's Dictionarium Britannicum

Nathan Bailey's Dictionarium Britannicum was the most comprehensive and most important English dictionary before Johnson's. It lacks much of the charm of Johnson's, but entries like this are delicious:

ABRACADAʹBRA, this Word is a Spell or Charm, which is still in Use and Esteem with some superstitious Persons, who pretend to do Wonders by it in the Cure of Agues and Fevers, which is to be written in the Form of a Triangle, decreasing one Letter every Line till it comes to a Point; and the Illiterate write the Letters in English Characters in the same Form.

א  ר  ב  א  ד  א  כ  א  ר  ב  א
ר  ב  א  ד  א  כ  א  ר  ב  א
ב  א  ד  א  כ  א  ר  ב  א
א  ד  א  כ  א  ר  ב  א
ד  א  כ  א  ר  ב  א
א  כ  א  ר  ב  א
כ  א  ר  ב  א
א  ר  ב  א
ר  ב  א
ב  א
א

No One Could See Him

Entry of the Day:
Dwarfs in Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable

Brewer, E. Cobham. Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, Giving the Derivation, Source, or Origin of Common Phrase, Allusions, and Words That Have a Tale to Tell. London, 1870.

Dwarfs. The most remarkable are:
    Phileʹtas, a poet (contemporary with Hippocʹratës), so small ‘that he wore leaden shoes to prevent being blown away by the wind.’ (Died B.C. 280.)
    Nicephʹorus Calistus tells us of an Egyptian dwarf not bigger than a partridge.
    Arisʹtratos, the poet, was so small that Athenæʹos says no one could see him.
    Sir Geoffrey Hudson, born at Oakham, in Rutlandshire, at the age of thirty was only eighteen inches in height. (1619–1678.)
    Owen Farrel, the Irish dwarf, born at Caʹvan, hideously ugly, but of enormous muscular strength. Height, three feet nine inches. (Died 1742.)

Swan-Embroydered?

Entry of the Day:

Stream in Poole's English Parnassus

Poole, Joshua. The English Parnassus; or, A Helpe to English Poesie: Containing a Collection of All Rhyming Monosyllables, the Choicest Epithets, and Phrases: With Some General Forms upon All Occasions, Subjects, and Theams, Alphabetically Digested. London, 1657.

In addition to providing a very early rhyming dictionary (“INDE | Binde | Blinde | In-clin’d | De-clin’d | Din’d | Finde | Grinde | Be-hinde | Lin’d | Kind | Minde | Pin’d | Rinde | De-sign’d | Re-sign’d | Shin’d | En-shrin’d | Twin’d | Winde | Whin’d | Whrin’d”), Poole offered a set of "the choicest epithets" that might produce satisfying poetry: you might call Aaron "Sacred, mitred, holy, blessed, grave, priestly, pious"; an abbey can be "Rich, wealthy, cloysterd, monkish, religious, old, ancient. | Abbot. | Old, antient, religious, cloysterd, recluse, mitred, reverend, regular, grave, humble, devotious, retired, zealous, abtemious, monkish"; use "Obedient, aged, old, prudent, faithfull, blessed, wise, devout, pious, godly, religious, reverend, sage, grave, holy" with Abraham; and so on.

You might also need the “Formes of protesting. | By all the oathes sacred religion knowes. | By all oathes made in reverential fear | Of heaven, and her inhabitants. | By your self, that is all thats good.”

Here's a typical set of adjectives that collocate with stream, in case you're eager to write painfully clichéd seventeenth-century poetry:

Stream.

Winding, curled, purling, foaming, silver, christal, writhing, wriggling, snaky, sweeping, hurrying, silent, chiding, impetuous, resistlesse, enraged, flowing, fruitful, fishie, gorgling, running, gliding, slippery, soft, whispering, wandering, roaring, stragling, gushing, cleansing, drenching, whirling, rushing, glassie, pearly, silver-brested, rolling, swelling, wheeling, spreading, gently-sliding, glancing, ranging, tumbling, incensed, shower-enhanced, dancing, vaulting, borned, careering, azure, wavie, rustling, amorous, angry, boyling, bustling, surgie, murmuring, murtering, rumbling, frothy, bank-courting, uxorious, sliding, hasty, swift-pac’d, swan-embroydered.

No One Could Even Read Them

Entry of the Day:

"Qui multa scripserunt" in Isidore's Etymologies

Those who have written many things (Qui multa scripserunt) 1. Among Latin speakers, Marcus Terentius Varro wrote innumerable books. Among the Greeks likewise Chalcenterus (i.e. Didumus) is exalted with great praise because he published so many books that any of us would be hard put merely to copy out in our own hand such a number of works by another. 2. From us (i.e. Christians) also Origen, among the Greeks, in his labor with the Scriptures has surpassed both Greeks and Latins by the number of his works. In fact Jerome says that he has read six thousand of his books. 3. Still, Augustine with his intelligence and learning overcomes the output of all of these, for he wrote so much that not only could no one, working by day and night, copy his books, but no one could even read them.

From Isidore, Etymologies, p. 139; VI.vii.1–3

Oh Yes, THOSE Trees

Entry of the Day:

Anatiferous in Johnson's Dictionary

ANATI'FEROUS. adj. [from anas and fero, Lat.] Producing ducks.

If there be anatiferous trees, whose corruption breaks forth into barnacles; yet, if they corrupt, they degenerate into maggots, which produce not them again. Brown's Vulgar Errours.

Just think of the countless times you've been in conversation, searching for an adjective that refers to things that make ducks. Well, now you know.

Take That, George Carlin

Entry of the Day:

Cream-Stick in Farmer & Henley

From Farmer & Henley's Slang and Its Analogues, 2 vols., 1890, s.v. cream-stick:

Aaron's rod, Adam's arsenal, the Old Adam, arbor vitae, arse-opener, arse-wedge, athenaeum, bayonet, bean-tosser, beak, beef, bag of tricks, belly-ruffian, Billy-by-Nag, bludgeon, Blueskin, bracmard, my body's captain, broom-handle, bum-tickler, bush-beater, bush-whacker, butter-knife, catso or gadso, child-getter, chink-stopper, clothes-prop, club, cock, concern, copper-stick, crack-hunter, cracksman, cranny-hunter, cuckoo, cunny-catcher, crimson chitterling, dagger, dearest member, dicky, dibble, dirk, Don Cypriano, doodle, drooping member, drumstick, eye-opener, father-confessor, cunny-burrow ferret, fiddle-bow, o-for-shame, flute, fornicator, garden-engine and gardener (garden = the female pudendum), gaying instrument, generation tool, goose's neck, cutty gun, gut-stick, hair- (or beard-) splitter, hair-divider, Hanging Johnny, bald-headed hermit, Irish root, Jack-in-the-box, Jack Robinson, jargonelle, Jezebel, jiggling-bone, jock, Dr. Johnson, Master John Goodfellow, John Thomas, Master John Thursday, man Thomas, jolly-member, Julius Caesar, knock-Andrew, lance of love, life-preserver, live sausage, Little Davy, lollipop, lullaby, machine, man-root, marrow-bone, marrow-bone-and-cleaver, member for Cockshire, merry-maker, middle-leg, mouse, mole, mowdiwort, Nebuchadnezzar, nilnisistando, Nimrod, nine-inch-knocker, old man, peace-maker, pecker, pecnoster, pego, pestle, pike, pike-staff, pile-driver, pintle, pizzle, plougshare, plug-tail, pointer, poperine pear, Polyphemus, pond-snipe, prick, prickle, privates, private property, privy member, quim-stake, Roger, rolling-pin, root, rudder, rump-splitter, Saint Peter (who "keeps the keys of Paradise"), sausage, scepter, shove-straight, sky-scraper, solicitor-general, spindle, sponge, staff of life, stern-post, sugar-stick, tarse, tent-peg, thing, thumb of love, tickle-gizzard, tickle-toby, tool, toy, trifle, trouble-giblets, tug-mutton, unruly member, vestryman, watch-and-seals, wedge, whore-pipe, wimble, yard, Zadkiel.

Then we run through French (le sansonnet, le glaunt, l'asticot, le jambot), German (Bletzer, Breslauer, Bruder, Butzelmann, Fiesel, Dickmann, Pinke, Schmeichaz, Schwanz), and Portuguese (Pae de todos, porra, virgolleiro, pica, bacamarte, a montholia de Pastor).

If you ask nicely, I may give you the corresponding entries classed under "MONOSYLLABLE."  That goes on for three pages in English, four in French, two in German, and half a page each for Spanish and Portuguese.  Highlights: "best in Christendom," "bower of bliss," "Cockshire," "Cupid's Highway," "happy hunting grounds," "Mount Pleasant," "penwiper," and "vade-mecum."

Pure Ignorance

Blunder of the Day:

Pastern in Johnson's Dictionary

(The first in a continuing, albeit intermittent, series of posts on instances of inattention, foolishness, and incompetence in reference books, leading to booboos, howlers, ghost-words, and screw-ups of every description.)

In his Dictionary of 1755, Samuel Johnson defined a pastern simply as “The knee of an horse.” But the pastern isn't the knee at all; it's actually the part of the foot between the fetlock and the hoof. At least he was forthright about it. “A lady once asked him how he came to define Pastern” that way. Boswell tells us that “Instead of making an elaborate defence, as she expected, he at once answered, ‘Ignorance, Madam, pure ignorance.’”

Ductor in Linguas

Reference Book of the Day:

Minsheu, Ductor in Linguas

Minsheu, John. Ηγημων εις τας γλωσσας· id est, Ductor in Linguas, The Guide into Tongues: Cum Illarum Harmonia, & Etymologijs, Originationibus, Rationibus, & Deriuationibus in Omnibus his Vndecim Linguis, viz: 1. Anglica. 2. Cambro-Britanica. 3. Belgica. 4. Germanica. 5. Gallica. 6. Italica. 7. Hispanica. 8. Lusitanica seu Portugallica. 9. Latina. 10. Græca. 11. Hebrea. London, 1617.

Oh, how I love extravagant sixteenth- and seventeenth-century displays of over-the-top erudition. Things like the Dictionarium Græcolatinum (1568), Ortelius's Thesaurus geographicus (1578), Raleigh's History of the World (1614), Alsted's seven-volume Compendium philosophicum stretching to 2,404 folio pages (1626), Brian Walton's polyglot Bible in six huge folios (1654–57), and Chauvin's Lexicon rationale (1692). These are books that Tony Grafton was reading in his crib, but to the rest of us they're insane compendia of obscure learning that we'll never hope to master.

(I was going to write "people like Tony Grafton," but I realized there are no people like Tony Grafton.)

One of the craziest is Minsheu's Ductor in Linguas. Almost nothing is known of Minsheu himself. He was probably born in 1559 or 1560. The ODNB says he is of "unknown parentage," and provides what little information we have about his family:

He refers to a cousin living in Oxfordshire, John Vesey, who was a self-made man of dubious probity. Minsheu may have resembled him in these two respects: he was educated by extensive travels rather than in a university, and he was described as a rogue by Ben Jonson.

Somewhere he picked up proficiency in Spanish, something that had particular resonance in the age of the Armada. He apparently learned much of his Spanish while he was being imprisoned in Spain.

He published a few works on the Spanish language, beginning with an expansion of Richard Percyvall's Spanish dictionary and following it up with a Spanish grammar. But he found his metier some time around 1611, when he published a two-page prospectus for a

Glosson-etymologicon. (Id est.) the etymologie of tongues; or, A most ample and copiovs dictionary etymologicall, that is, the reasons and erivations, of all (or the most part) of works, in eleuen languages: viz. 1. English, 2. British or welsh, 3. High Dutch (sometime Saxon) 4. Low Dutch, (sometime Danish) 5. French, 6. Italian, 7. Spanish, (sometime Arabick) 8. Portugall, 9. Latine, 10. Greeke, 11. Hebrew, (and sometimes the Chalie and Syriack tongues.) ... In the end also 10. tables most copiovs to find ovt any workd in any of these eleven langvages; whereby it serves for a dictionaie [sic] in all these languages, ... Also diuers other necessary notes, and especiall directions, in this dictionarie, for the speedy obtaining any of these, or other tongues. By the industry, labour, and onely expences of Iohn Minsheu, who for these many yeares, hath maintained many scholars and strangers about his worke, ... A true copy of the hands of certaine learned men, in approbation, and confirmation of this worke.

That work came to fruition in 1617 as Ηγημων εις τας γλωσσας· id est, Ductor in Linguas — the Greek at Latin for "Guide into the Tongues."

The book is organized around an English word-list, and provides translations into ten languages (Welsh, Dutch, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Latin, Greek, and Hebrew). It's more than 700 crowded double-columned folio pages. Minsheu was the first to arrange a polyglot dictionary around an English alphabet, which makes sense, given his desire of making foreign languages easier for English-speakers.

Minsheu did much of the work himself, though he did employ native speakers of the modern languages to read through the best writers to collect information.

Modern critics have shown that Minsheu's pedagogical aims were admirable, but his scholarly credentials were shaky at best. He wasn't above plagiarism, and his learning wasn't nearly as deep as it seemed. Critic Jürgen Schäfer delivers the harsh verdict:

Far from being a Renaissance etymologist in the true sense of the word, Minsheu must have compiled his etymologies together with the rest of his material without regard to etymological principles or consistency.

But I'm still in love with the sheer copiousness of the learning, the delight in excess for its own sake, and the passion for what D. W. Jefferson called "learned wit."

The Ententiue Partes of Mannes Vnderstanding

Reference Book of the Day:

Damiano, The Pleasaut and Wittie Playe of Cheasts Renewed

Damiano da Odenara. The Pleasaunt and Wittie Playe of the Cheasts Renewed with Instructions Both to Learne It Easely, and to Play It Well: Lately Translated out of Italian into French: And Now Set Furth in Englishe by Iames Rowbothum. London, 1562.

Not every reference book is strictly utilitarian — not every reference book, in other words, tells its users things they need to know. Many tell them what they simply want to know, and how they might amuse themselves. This explains the abundance of reference works that teach readers to play games.

Among the first guides to a board game in English is a compendium of advice on chess, The Pleasaunt and Wittie Playe of the Cheasts Renewed, by the Portuguese pharmacist Pedro Damião of Odemira. His Questo libro e da imparare giocare a scachi et de li partiti was originally written in Italian in 1512, then translated into French, and finally into English in 1562. The subtitle to the English edition promises “Instructions Both to Learne It Easely, and to Play It Well.”

James Rowbothum, the English translator, thought he was performing an important service to the state. In his dedication to Robert Dudley, Queen Elizabeth’s favorite, he explained the genuine advantages of chess-playing. Chess would help statesmen understand “the graue and waightye affaires of Princes,” he explained, and would also provide some recreation to those who sought a workout not for the body but for the mind: they would find themselves “exercised not with the outward strength of the bodye, but with the inwarde force of witte and intelligence, to the great sharpening of the ententiue partes of mannes vnderstanding.”

Those who take up chess would develop “a certaine studye, pollicie, wit, forcast, memorie, with other properties, to make men circumspect not onelye in playing this game, but also comparing it to a publick gouernement, or more properly a batttel.”

"W00t," "Sexting" Now Officially Real Words

A few weeks ago I did a profile of Webster's Third New International, the most controversial dictionary of the twentieth century.

In this weekend's New York Times Book Review, Geoff Nunberg — a linguist at Berkeley, and one of the few academic linguists who writes well for a lay audience — has his own profile on Webster's Third. The whole thing is worth reading, but he has some particularly good material on a topic of perennial interest, how new words get into "the dictionary":

In retrospect, in fact, the Third seems downright fusty. Word harvesting in Gove’s time hadn’t changed since Samuel Johnson, with readers patiently culling citations from printed works. Now the Internet puts tens of thousands of new words at the lexicographer’s fingertips, the great majority of them technical terms, media stunt words like “Brangelina” and “sexploits,” or what Dr. Johnson would have called the “fugitive cant” of chat rooms, tweets and social networks (think of “meep” and “w00t”). And modern dictionaries don’t keep words waiting in the vestibule long. Over the last year the Oxford English Dictionary has inducted “wassup,” “BFF” and “muffin top” (of the abdominal, not the culinary, variety). The new Chambers Dictionary includes “freegan” and “geek chic,” and Merriam-­Webster has recently added “staycation.” Not that lexicographers will include any word that swims into their ken: so far they’ve drawn the line at “refudiate,” though the editors of the Oxford American chose it for their 2010 Word of the Year. But nowadays the dictionary is about as hard to get into as Sam’s Club.

A lot of these items will expire before your hamster does. But there’s little need for a bouncer at the door once dictionaries go online, where space is effectively limitless. And one can make room in print editions by tossing out last season’s fads, like “yadda, yadda” and “Monicagate,” both of which were proffered as evidence of the up-to-­dateness of the Encarta World English Dictionary when it was published in 1999. (Though it was perhaps rash for the Oxford Concise to squeeze in “jeggings” and “mankini” by dropping “cassette tape,” a word that may yet require elucidation for antiquarians poring over early issues of Rolling Stone.)

Nunberg goes on to observe that "publishers know it’s the pop-culture words that the media will write about, under headings like '"W00t," "Sexting" Now Officially Real Words.' And where critics once railed at dictionaries for including popular slang, now they greet it appreciatively." He goes on to remind readers that lexicographers squirm uncomfortably with this idea of "approving" or "admitting" "real words."