Reading is an act. A process. An act of understanding the black on white. A process of understanding the calligraphy that forms a particular text. Everyone reads; whether it is a book, a piece of newspaper that held steaming pakoras, a magazine in a doctor’s clinic, a pamphlet handed over by an agent, a signboard along the road, an advertisement banner on a wall, the nutritional contents on a food packet, name boards of shops, quotes at the back of cars and trucks, almanacs, horoscopes and so on.
Blind people read with their fingers. There are certain reading groups where a book, journal or magazine is read aloud to groups of people. Words are fascinating. They make up the fabric of so much of our life. No matter which book we read (in whichever language we read), we are bound to come across a word we may have never heard of before or a word that has slipped away from the clutches of human memory. Only then do we turn to the repertoire of words and their meanings- the dictionary.
Talking about human memory, do you remember the time you first came to know about a dictionary? Do you remember the first word you looked up in a dictionary? Yes? No? I remember. It was ‘funny’. How old would I have been at the time when I did not even know what funny meant! Or perhaps I did?
I was reading a book of short stories, covered in a chocolate brown cover, when I came across the word funny. As I did not know the meaning of the word, I asked my father to explain its meaning to me. He did not say anything. He got up, went straight into the room and brought out a huge book with him. It was red, bound.
I had seen this book before among his other books. I had drawn flowers and different artistic designs on its pages with pens and pencils but I did not know what the book was. It was a 1991 edition copy of the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary which has survived till date. It was the first time I came to know about a dictionary.
As I write this article, I have with me the same dictionary and I leaf through its pages till I stop at page number 502. The headword at the top left corner of this page reads ‘funk.’ Below it, following two other words, is written the word ‘funny’ /ˈfʌni/ – adj (-ier, -iest) 1 causing amusement, laughter, etc.: funny stories. a funny man. That’s the funniest thing I’ve ever heard. 2 difficult to explain or understand; strange. A funny thing happened to me today. That’s funny- he was here a moment ago and now he’s gone. The engine’s making a very funny noise.
For some reason, the second meaning of the word has been underlined with a pencil. Perhaps, this was the context of the word ‘funny’ which was used in the story that I was then reading. There are more definitions of the word listed which I choose not to mention here.
This is the oldest copy of the dictionary (after a Thesaurus) that I have and it is a hand-me-down copy from my father. I remember it exactly as it was more than a decade ago – red, bound. I remember its texture, its material, its colour. At that time, the binding had started to come off at many places and the threads had become loose, rhizoid-like in appearance. The copy survived with the tattered binding for many years after that.
It was not until a couple of years ago that I got the binding changed. The new binding was purple in colour, like that of a sweet potato with repetitive patterns of a cross, with arms equal in length and perpendicular to the adjacent arms, each bent midway at a right angle — like the Nazi Hakenkreuz with white flowers.
From a distance, the pattern, combined with the background colour, looks like the onion cells as seen under a microscope when stained with safranin. There is a rectangular name tag on the front face of the binding (10 cm * 6.5 cm) with the writing ‘Sudesh Book Binders’ in bold. The name tag has blanks against the following and an advertising statement with the owner’s mobile number at the end.
Years after getting the copy bound, it now stays on my desk just like it had stayed a decade ago on my father’s desk — in a worn-out condition. The binding has started to wear out again. Its cover has faded, lending it a charming old-world look. The green linen net that had covered the spine of the dictionary is now in rags.
The front panel of the dictionary is adorned with red, navy blue, turquoise and white colors. There is a lot of scribbling on the pages, which I had done as a child. The memories resurface with a stark realization of the ephemerality of time and the impossibility of seizing it.
Most of us have at some point or another in our life purchased a dictionary and used it. But what exactly is a dictionary? In simple terms, it can be described as a wordbook arranged in alphabetical order. There are different definitions of a dictionary. Different dictionaries offer different definitions for a dictionary.
For instance, according to the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, it is: (a) book that lists and expands the words of a language, or gives translations of them into one or more other languages, and is usually arranged in alphabetical order: an English dictionary. (b) similar book that explains the terms of a particular subject: a dictionary of architecture.
According to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), it is defined as “a book dealing with the individual words of a language (or certain specified classes of them), so as to set forth their orthography, pronunciation, signification, and use, their synonyms, derivation, and history, or at least some of these facts: for convenience of reference, the words are arranged in some stated order, now, in most languages, alphabetical; and in larger dictionaries, the information given is illustrated by quotations from literature; a word-book, vocabulary, or lexicon. Dictionaries are of two kinds: those in which the meanings of the words of one language or dialect are given in another (or, in a polyglot dictionary, in two or more languages), and those in which the words of a language are treated and illustrated in this language itself. The former were the earlier”;
According to Webster’s Third New International Dictionary, it is “a reference book containing words, usually alphabetically arranged along with information about their forms, pronunciations, functions, etymologies, meanings, and syntactical and idiomatic uses”;
According to Collins Concise Dictionary, London, 1989, it is “1 a. a book that consists of an alphabetical list of words with their meanings, parts of speech, pronunciations, etymologies, etc. b. a similar book giving equivalent words in two or more languages. 2. a reference book listing words or terms and giving information about a particular subject or activity. 3. a collection of information or examples with the entries alphabetically arranged.”
In the opening paragraph of Chapter V of his book, ‘Manual of Lexicography’, Ladislav Zgusta writes: ‘One of the best definitions I know of the term dictionary was given by C.C.Berg: “A dictionary is a systematically arranged list of socialized linguistic forms compiled from the speech-habits of a given speech-community and commented on by the author in such a way that the qualified reader understands the meaning . . . of each separate form, and is informed of the relevant facts concerning the functions of that form in its community.”’
But a dictionary is also a collection of all the works man has ever produced, since he invented the art of writing, in one form or another. A dictionary is also the raw material for all the literary works that are yet to take birth.
The dictionary is a paragon. It is a guide to clarity and the language. It is a large and complex book. It is a catalogue. It is an essential work. It is a scholarship. It is an awe-inspiring work. It is a book that possesses the meaning of everything.
There are various other types of dictionaries as well. Dictionaries can be classified depending upon the content such as dialect, general-purpose, subject-specific, or slang. They can further be classified based on the number of words such as unabridged, semi-unabridged, or abridged. Then there are commercial and academic dictionaries, a learner’s dictionary, dictionary of peculiar words, dictionary of quotations, encyclopaedic dictionaries, linguistic dictionaries and so on and so forth.
Dictionaries are never complete. They are never perfect. They do not–and cannot–contain all the words of any language. Dictionaries evolve. They don’t remain the same as they were a few years ago. Language evolves. New words are formed, borrowed or adapted from other languages and added to the great list. Dictionaries are prone to mutations.
The dictionary tells the story of the sheer madness of the highly talented and ambitious people who had dared of dreaming the impossible and eventually set out on a journey of great risks for accomplishing it. Until last year, I had seen it just like any other book. I had never taken a moment to reflect upon what might have undergone into the making of this scholarship and who could have been the people that had made the impossible possible.
It was only at the beginning of this year that I came across the works of Simon Winchester and was astounded by the history and the story that lies behind the making of the Oxford English Dictionary which is no less than a great thriller. There is anger, there is enthusiasm, there is fantasy, there is fear, there is madness, there is murder, there is mystery, there is pathos, there is romance, there is sadness, there is thriller, there is a plethora of emotions that ultimately bloom into the OED.
As fascinating and intriguing the OED is, so is the story of its making and its makers – a kleptomaniac, a homicidal lunatic, an Esperanto enthusiast, a recluse and hermit, a man who taught Latin to cattle and many more. I had never imagined nor would I have ever imagined, had I not read about its making, that a person, the eldest son of a tailor and liner-draper; an autodidact who left school at the age of fourteen would become the great and famous editor of the great dictionary. Nor could have I imagined that the major contribution to the OED would have been made from a prison cell of an asylum for the criminally insane by a former army officer and surgeon who in the asylum came to be known as Broadmoor Patient Number 742, a certified criminal lunatic.
The Oxford English Dictionary is a result of seventy years of sweat and blood from all the people who were associated with it. It is the result of numerous volunteers that read books of different periods and made a word list with details of the work. It was indeed an excruciating task that demanded mental and physical exertion. It was work, a commitment, for some. For others, it became therapy. Anyone who has read about the extraordinary story of the OED is bound to treat and use it with respect for it is a work of sheer genius, a heroic creation, a masterpiece of some of the world’s brilliant minds.
It is unfortunate that, in the present time, a physical dictionary has lost its charm among the masses. The culture of using dictionaries is dying. It is a pity that people nowadays, especially the kids, do not use dictionaries anymore. Even if there are some people, their numbers are significantly low.
Children do not have competitions in schools where they are asked to find certain words in the dictionary. They do not know how to search for words in it. Looking up a word in a dictionary is also an art that is constantly dying with the present generation.
Digital dictionaries have taken place of the physical copies. Moreover, nowadays, Google does everything. Electronic devices have taken over the physical copies of books. .pdf and .doc have taken over hardcovers and paperbacks. No doubt looking up a word in a dictionary app or online is easier, time-saving and preferred. However, it can never replace the experience of finding a word in the dictionary.
Before this legacy may die, it is time we bequeath it to our coming generations by ensuring that children are made familiar with dictionaries and how to use them.
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