The Lexicographer's Rules

A fairly ordinary article in New Scientist about online dictionaries and word-hunting has been published. Ben Zimmer has some critical comments about the article.

It’s the usual stuff: it has a gee-whiz tone, it has wacky words littered throughout, it barely scratches the surface, and it makes light of “geeks” and “nerds.” The last two paragraphs are rewrites or direct quotes from my long post, Language Evolution in the Digital Age, which is fine, I guess, but since the article fails to include any URLs, nobody but you, me, and the writer will ever know. That’s old media for you.

Also, it says I “help” run Double-Tongued Dictionary. I don’t “help,” I do run it. It is 100% my show. I have a few people on the “about” page who are contributors, but only one contributes regularly.

The following was originally meant for the university of Leceister slang-list, but it was somehow rejected, which beats me...so much for the freedom of expression.

My name is Terry Anderson.I am quite delighted to have come across this discussion board. I am currently writing an essay on urban slang and therefore am rather hoping to glean some knowledge from the exchanges in this forum. The other day, I was reading an article on Daniel Cassidy and his highly imaginative work ‘How the Irish Invented Slang’. I must say, I have not read anything as sloppily done as this book. Unfortunately, Mr. Cassidy, with his rather defensive and so-called maligned writer’s attitude, seems to be out of touch with erudition and scholarly approach. It is unfortunate to see that such books claim what they are not, and that simply by going beyond the cover, one can come across numerous pitfalls.

I am afraid this phenomenon can sometimes apply to more popular and highly praised dictionaries. Upon close inspection (due to the nature of my current research), Cassell’s Dictionary Of Slang, by Jonathon Green, 2005 Edition, shows numerous instances of wrong information or mis-information. In overall, It is rather a good dictionary, however, it is not entirely what it claims to be. There are many instances of inclusion of dialect (In addition to the problems of eymology and dating, sometimes off by a couple of centuries!), mostly British dialect. I have included a couple of examples hereinafter.I think that including such information can be mis-leading and should be avoided.

The following two examples have been included in Cassell’s Dictionary of Slang by Jonathon Green. Now, according to OED (Oxford English Dictionary), they are dialectical. Here is what are OED has to say:

blether, blather, v.
Sc. and north. dial.
[ME. blather, a. ON. bla ra to talk stupidly, f. bla r nonsense. Blather is the etymological form, blether being Sc. and north. Eng. (like gether = gather etc.). But in mod.Eng., the word is generally accepted as Scotch (from Burns, Scott, Carlyle, etc.) and in the Scotch form....

1.  intr. To talk nonsense loquaciously.

blink, v.
10. To look upon with the evil eye, to bewitch. Sc. and Irish. Cf. 7a.
1880 W. H. PATTERSON Gloss. Antrim & Down 9 Cow’s milk is said to be blinked when it does not produce butter, in consequence of some supposed charm having been worked.