Mere Words

Words and the power of language to transform the ordinary into the exceptional cannot ever be underestimated. Words give us the power to transform thoughts and perceptions into a landscape of understanding and appreciation for the world that surrounds us. A vocabulary absent of exceptional words represents an individual lacking the wherewithal to fully express himself and the wonder of existence.

Those who have been gifted with the extraordinary ability to manipulate language and make full use of the words available to us as intelligent and aware human beings reward those of us without the gift of the craft of writing. Through the written (or printed) word we access history, the stories of humankind's marvellous journeys toward the present; the trajectory of technology, of science, of philosophy and the arts.

And words take us toward the sublime uplift resulting from creative imaginations capable of taking us to places we will never see; experience through the gift of literature, adventure, the arcane, the explicable and the inexplicable, the pedestrian and the enlightened; the mysterious and the lengths to which people can and will go to manifest their idiosyncratic observations of life on this Planet.

In the time of the Great Bard, there was no publication such as a dictionary that would explain to people what a word was meant to convey, how it was spelled, how spoken, and its usage within a coherent sentence, let alone its secular exegesis, its etymology. Spelling was a casual affair. William Shakespeare had no tome to which he could refer for any of these reasons; he did, however, heavily impact on the English language.

In sixteenth Century England a scholar, Nathaniel Bailey, issued twenty-five dictionaries between 1721 and 1782, in an attempt to bring together the lexicon of English words. His prodigious effort was given the verbiage-laden title:

A Universal Etymological Dictionary. Comprehending The Derivations of the Generality of Words in the English tongue, either Antient or Modern, from the Antient British, Saxon, Danish, Norman and Modern French, Teutonic, Dutch, Spanish, Italian, Latin, Greek and Hebrew Languages, each in their proper Characters. And Also a brief and clear Explication of all difficult words ... and Terms of Art relating to Botany, Anatomy, Physick ... together with A Large Collection and Explication of Words and Phrases Us'd in our Antient Statutes, charters, Writs, Old Records and Processes at at Law; and the Etymology and Interpretation of the Proper Names of Men, Woman and Remarkable Places in Great Britain; also the Dialects of our Different Counties, Containing many Thousand Words more than ... any English Dictionary before extant. To which is Added a Collection of our most Common Proverbs with their Explication and Illustration. The whole work compil'd and Methodically digested, as well as for the entertainment of the Curious as the information of the Ignorant, and for the Benefit of young Students, Artificers, Tradesmen and Foreigners ... *

Now there's a mouthful, and more. Demonstrating, however, the ambitious determination of this man's mind. Still he had produced a valuable research tool, as well as one that could be used by the common folk. Previous dictionaries generally highlighted words that were quaint, little-used other than in very polite, distinguished, aristocratic society. Nathaniel Bailey's own quaint olde-English spelling might be thought to have left something to be desired. But his dictionaries were extremely popular and became best sellers of their time.

In terms of effort, production and sheer dedication to the drudgery of seeking, refining, designing and selecting a more perfected language repository and explanation of meanings, this series was followed by what was considered to be the ultimately definitive dictionary edited and assembled by the great Samuel Johnson. In contrast to the inflated title of his predecessor, Samuel Johnson's resulting, and since-used tome was A Dictionary of the English Language.

Like the later and most prestigious publication of the Oxford English Dictionary, Samuel Johnson's compilation was meant to contain each and every word used in the English language. Words with an ancient heritage, those more modern; at least up to the day when they were coined and used. Some have since slipped from usage and have been abandoned, others to take their place.

Language was eventually recognized as a living, changing expression of humanity's communication skills. And so it remains, one of our most precious tools.

* The Professor and the Madman - A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of The Oxford English Dictionary - Simon Winchester