IngentaConnect Usage Guidance in Early Dictionaries of English

Author: Osselton, N. E.

Source: International Journal of Lexicography, Volume 19, Number 1, March 2006 , pp. 99-105(7)

Abstract:

Our understanding of the ways in which English dictionaries developed in the early years can now be refined by statistical studies of electronic texts. Quantified searches for key-words such as obsolete and low may indicate, for instance, that Dr Johnson's usage notes represent a significant historical change, thus setting a pattern for the lexicographical usage and style labels of later centuries. But such computer word-searches may be misleading unless they are backed up by a reading of dictionary texts in the original printed form. Future statistical research will need to be adapted so as to cover the compilers' use of non-verbal usage markers (asterisks, daggers, etc.) as well. These were a common feature of monolingual English dictionaries (and of European bilingual dictionaries) in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The widespread use of the device (as well as of label abbreviations) in early works shows that the prescriptive tradition in English dictionaries was well established before Johnson's day.

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