Dictionary talk more than just words (From Basingstoke Gazette)

Dictionary talk more than just words

1:30pm Tuesday 27th July 2010 in

• Skip social links
• Print
• Email
•  

Samuel Johnson, Lexicographer,
by Susie Dent
Winchester Festival

AS PART of the 2010 Winchester Festival Susie Dent, the resident dictionary expert and adjudicator on Channel 4’s game show Countdown, gave a fascinating and surprisingly witty talk about the nation’s first-ever dictionary and its author.

After telling a packed auditorium that the general belief is the dictionary is official and important but “deadly dull”, she went on to prove just the opposite.

Having dispelled the accuracy of Blackadder’s version of Dr Johnson, Dent fleshed out the relatively few details known about him, including his ill-health as a child and how he came to be commissioned to write the first authoritative dictionary of the English language, published in 1755.

It was an enormous undertaking, which in France apparently took 40 men 55 years to complete, but which Dr Johnson achieved in 10 years with the help of a team of clerks.

His mission was to capture the “boundless chaos of living speech” rather than freeze it and he read an astounding 2,000 books – including the Bible and works by Pope, Milton, Dryden and Shakespeare – to illustrate the different shades of meaning of words.

The end result was as much an anthology of the English language as a dictionary, albeit a flawed one.

Dent also illustrated for the audience, in Winchester Guildhall, how hints of Dr Johnson’s personality can be found in his definitions, such as his entry for “dull”, which gives the example of “to make a dictionary is dull work”, or “oats” which are apparently “a grain given to horses but in Scotland feed the people”.

Her talk was funny, informative and extremely interesting and made pertinent to a modern audience by references to new words in today’s language, and little details like the fact that 30 million people in the UK sign up for word-of-the-day emails.

The lecture was presented in association with the English Project and The University of Winchester, and was followed by a few words and questions from Bill Lucas, professor of learning at the university, before members of the audience were given the opportunity to ask questions.