{"id":189,"date":"2008-02-01T16:51:57","date_gmt":"2008-02-01T16:51:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/plmcs.wordpress.com\/?p=189"},"modified":"2008-02-01T16:51:57","modified_gmt":"2008-02-01T16:51:57","slug":"jottings-february-2008","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mcsorley.org\/jottings\/2008\/02\/01\/jottings-february-2008\/","title":{"rendered":"February 2008"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cNo man but a blockhead ever wrote except of money\u201d (Dr. Samuel Johnson)<\/em><\/p>\n

Words, written or spoken, are our tools of communicating \u2013 from poetry to legal documents. Or as an author I was recently reading said, \u201cWords are the worker bees of human communication and commerce, and they are legion\u201d (Paul L.Escamilla)<\/p>\n

How they do grow in English! English is a constantly growing language. My understanding is that some languages like French and Italian, and maybe Greek, maintain Academies that control what or if any new words may be added. In fact John Adams suggested that we do the same and he introduced a bill to create such an Academy. But it did not pass in part because of the thoughts and message of Thomas Jefferson, who said, \u201c If Like the French Academicians, it were proposed to fix our language, it would be fortunate that the step were not taken in the days of Saxon ancestor, whose vocabulary would illy express the science of this day. Judicious neology (study of new words) can alone give strength and copiousness to language, and enable it to be the vehicle of new ideas.\u201d And so it is.<\/p>\n

English was and is not controlled. It is now the language used in commerce around the world. It is the lingua franca, i.e., the language adopted as a common language between speakers whose native language is different.<\/p>\n

The quote, under the title, is one of Johnson\u2019s many aphorisms. He is second only to Shakespeare in being quoted. He created a dictionary. It is often considered the \u2018first\u2019 English dictionary but apparently there were two others prior to his. But his was \u2018a pivotal moment in the history of the English language\u201d. The comment by him about being a blockhead if you\u2019re not paid when you write is a bit ironic. Johnson struggled to survive. He only became comfortable late in his life when the King provided him with a pension. Before that he survived more on patrons than on his writing. The contract he signed to do the dictionary was for fifteen hundred guineas paid to him in installments based on the delivery of manuscript pages. Further he had to pay for the ink, paper, and any and all expenses related to the project, e.g., like associates to help him. So it may appear that he only wrote for money but he certainly didn\u2019t make it the prime requirement for his writing. The dictionary he thought would take about three years, in actuality it took ten (1745-1755)!<\/p>\n

The history of the development and growth of the English language is fascinating. The idea of listing words alphabetically with definition for each didn\u2019t happen until Johnson\u2019s time. There were dictionaries but they limited themselves to what they called \u2018hard\u2019 words. Johnson\u2019s was the first attempt to list all known words and their definition. This was followed historically by the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary, which is now referred to simply as OED. It was suppose to take about ten years to complete but it took seventy. It listed the earliest known version of the word, the author who was known to use it, along with a definition that then existed. The history of OED\u2019s creation caught my attention through a book entitled \u201cThe Professor and The Mad Man\u201d by Simon Winchester. I had read it several years ago but something brought me back to it and I read it again recently. The Professor is a Scotch schoolteacher, James Murray who becomes the Editor of the dictionary after some years of it not moving onward and its completion becoming doubtful. The Mad Man is a Dr. W. C. Minor and American surgeon.<\/p>\n

The OED was created under Murray by asking volunteers through out the English speaking world to fill out a form. The form required a listing of the word, in what book they read it, who the author was, when the book was published, the use that was made of the word in the book, and its definition from its content. They had received over a 1000 such forms from Dr. Minor. Some where along the way they wanted to honor the volunteers and did so but Dr. Minor did not appear. Murray later learns, from some other American who was also contributing, that Dr. Minor is in an asylum. He goes to the asylum and visits with him. It begins a long relationship between the two. Dr. Minor had been a surgeon in the American Army in the Civil War. He was treated for some mental derangement but then was discharged and retired. He travels around the world and ends up in London where he kills another man for reasons that are only in his head. He is acquitted of murder but sentence to life in the mental institution outside of London. He is well off financially. He builds separate quarters from other inmates where he stores his books and spends his time reading. His mental problems are mainly in his attempts to sleep. He continually believes someone is coming into his quarters somehow and will kill him. Yet during his daylight hours he is just a retired gentleman pursuing his love of literature. All of this leads to his work on the OED and through that his friendship with Editor Murray.<\/p>\n

The book also told of the struggle that Murray had of persevering for years in putting the OED together. It is now more that 20 volumes and the most referred to dictionary in the English speaking world. The number of new words added each year is amazing and is due to the growing of science and our culture. Its first addition was 4 volumes and 6400 pages. The second edition in 1989 was 20 volumes, 21,730 pages and 59 million words! We have an example in a very small way with the computer and some of its words, e.g. hardware, CD\u2019s, web page, keyboard, virus and mouse pad. They all have other meanings then those when applied to the computer<\/p>\n

Most people aren\u2019t concerned about individual words and their meaning. When they read a book, or magazine, or newspaper, yes, it is words, but it is the interest it creates by the words that makes them persevere\u2026not the words. My interest is something like a car lover\u2019s. He has to take the car apart, exam it, put it back, and work on the finish of the body, etc. Oh! And yes and then drive it! But whether its \u201cwords\u201d or \u201ccar parts\u201d we are all happier when the work.<\/p>\n

Speaking of words, it is February. February brings St. Valentine\u2019s Day and with it \u2018words\u2019 in the form of cards, notes, etc. Someone has calculated that over 180 million cards are exchanged on that day. Another statistician estimates that of all cards sent each year twenty five percent are sent on Valentine\u2019s Day.<\/p>\n

I attend a Book Club meeting once a week. We, a group of men with a variety of backgrounds, experience, and employment, discuss the book and exchange ideas relating to what we have read. I\u2019ve been doing this for some seven or eight years; I can\u2019t now recall when I started. I\u2019ve only missed when I was incapacitated or we were travelling. The club has all that time centered its thoughts and reading on one book \u2013 the Bible. This is possible because the Bible is really not \u2018one\u2019 book. Its like the Sunday paper with its variety of literature, history, prose, reports of celebrations and travesties and even humor. For the past year we\u2019ve concerned ourselves with a history book in the New Testament entitled \u201cActs\u201d.<\/p>\n

This book is the second chapter of the writing of the Gospel of Luke and which is prefaced with these remarks: \u201cMany have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eye-witnesses and servants of the word. Therefore, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, it seemed good also to me to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught\u201d So the book Acts is a history of Paul\u2019s spreading the good news throughout most of the known civilized world. He spent the last 30 years of his life doing it. I can heartily recommend it as great history reading. Until next time, Pax Tecum!\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cNo man but a blockhead ever wrote except of money\u201d (Dr. Samuel Johnson) Words, written or spoken, are our tools of communicating \u2013 from poetry to legal documents. Or as an author I was recently reading said, \u201cWords are the worker bees of human communication and commerce, and they are legion\u201d (Paul L.Escamilla) How they … <\/p>\n

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