the scholar carnered: What Is A Dictionary?

Author(s): Jacques Barzun

Source: The American Scholar, Vol. 32, No. 2 (Spring, 1963), pp. 176-181
Published by: The Phi Beta Kappa Society
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/41209082
Accessed: 08-04-2019 23:30 UTC

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 the scholar cornered

What Is A Dictionary?

Webster's Third New International Dic- This was extraordinary, for more than one
tionary (which I refuse to call W3 as ifreason.
life Never in my experience has the Edi-
were too short for words) has been in circu-
torial Board desired to reach a position; it
lation more than a year and has received respects without effort the individuality of
from the start the kind of critical attention
each member and contributor, and it ex-
that a work of that size and importance de- and relishes diversity. What is even
pects
serves. There have been reviews, descriptive,
more remarkable, none of those present had
admiring and hostile; there have been news-
given the new dictionary more than a casual
paper editorials, including one in the New
glance, yet each one felt that he knew how
York Times which exemplified by parody he stood on the issue that the work pre-
the doctrine of the new edition; and sented to the public.
there have been articles in literary and That astonishing and possibly premature
general magazines, which pointed a moralconcurrence within a group of writers whose
while treating the fundamental question:work almost invariably exhibits judicial tol-
What is a dictionary? Mr. Dwight Mac- erance and the scholarly temper defines the
Donald in the New Yorker and Mr. Wilson nature and character of the new Webster:
Follett in the Atlantic delivered, with it is undoubtedly the longest political pam-
abundant examples, the most philosophic
phlet ever put together by a party. Its 2662
of the attacks on the new work, and Mr.
large pages embody - and often preach by
Bergen Evans, among others, offered re-
suggestion - a dogma that far transcends the
buttal and counterattack. Both sides have limits of lexicography. I have called it a
written with heat - the heat of indignation
political dogma because it makes assump-
- except when they meant to be freezinglytions about the people and because it im-
cold with the cold of contempt. plies a particular view of social intercourse.
This is indeed why any page of the work
All this is gratifying. For it shows that de-
provokes immediate resistance or assent. No
spite the many signs of linguistic indiffer-
ence in daily life, some people at least still
one who thinks at all can keep from being a
feel strongly about language and can be
partisan. And the explosive charge con-
roused to battle about it. The debate has tained in the definitions and examples (let
not been confined to print, and it is not alone the prefatory matter) is reinforced
over; it is very much alive in living rooms,by the intellectual theory that under-
students' rooms, editorial rooms. When it lies the political and social views. That
theory is the scientism of the linguists,
came up as a subject of interest at a meeting
of the board of The American Scholar, which is bound to divide thinking people
everyone present felt that its importance still more sharply into adherents and ene-
warranted notice from one of us, and I wasmies. The issue comes down to this: Are
delegated to express the board's "position."the products of the human mind (in this

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 THE SCHOLAR CORNERED

By this
instance language) to be treated like means words are stripped of a qual-
natural
objects? The answer Yes means that what-
ity they have had since the dawn of civiliza-
tion and
ever "the people" utter is a "linguistic are reduced to algebraic signs. I
fact"
am not
to be recorded, cherished, preferred to using
any a figure of speech: it is a
reason or tradition. The new dictionary
mathematical yearning that induces the
might thus be called avant-garde, linguist
not totosayinvent the term "function word"
surrealist. To which its detractorsfor
say: "It is
preposition, conjunction, auxiliary verb
voluminous, but gives no light." and the like; just as it is algebraic and not
verbal usage that leads the modern pedant
No doubt this explanation of the to passions
insist that we write: "In his The Waste-
aroused by the new Webster will land . . . /'toas if the joining of "his" and
seem
some far-fetched and abstract. How can the"the" were indispensable to an equation
definition of a simple word such as "of" that would come out wrong by the omission
of either.
betray the political and moral biases I have
inferred? Quite simply: the populism and These common examples bring us to the
seien tism of the new lexicon appear to- questions implied in What is a dictionary?
gether, for example, in the twenty-first use namely:
of What is language? What are words?
"of," as an alteration of "have" - "I should The so-called scientific doctrine which has
of come." This is given as representing, "es- killed grammar and rhetoric in the schools
pecially in written dialogue, a supposed asserts a number of incompatible things
dialectal or substandard speech." The word about language: that it is a system of sounds
"supposed" is laden with prejudice, and one used for communication and therefore
is amazed at the suggestion that this "of"changeable at will; that it is a natural entit
occurs in writing only. Since this usage oc-
which grows and evolves, and therefore f
curs frequently in speech, as everybody lows natural, not arbitrary laws. Linguistic
knows, one is bound to wonder whether its it is clear, is playing at technology as we
inclusion in a famous dictionary does not as science. It goes on to teach that th
confer upon it the lexicographer's blessing. sounds of language can be given symbo
Certainly there is an implied defense of representation in written forms, thanks
these of's, who are also the have nots. which the evolution of both sounds and
So much for democratic feeling. Now to forms can be traced over millennia and
its concomitant. The previous illustrations across continents; yet the science also hold
of "of" are each introduced by the designa- that language is speech and speech alon
tion: "used as a function word to indi- hence the ways and opinions of writers hav
cate. . . ." The phrase is therefore repeatedno more importance in linguistics than
twenty times, although the word being ideas have
de- in Marxist materialism: both are
fined - "of" - is never repeated but the is rep-
empty froth carried down the powerful
resented by the sign ~. This is science.
streamIn of history. It follows that the English
language comprises whatever is intelligible
the same way proper names and adjectives
are never capitalized but carry the indica-
to any group that thinks it is speaking Eng-
lish -and
tion "usu. cap." This is system. Science Puerto Rican children in New York,
native bureaucrats in India or Nigeria,
system play throughout the work a strongly
rhetorical part. They do not saveOzark space;mountaineers, B.B.G. announcers,
much less do they serve the reader's con-
judges of the United States Supreme Court,
venience. The use of a sign for the word and unfortunate
we idiots with cleft palates.
are interested in is a subtle attack on The There is undeniable grandeur in this ac-
Word, just as it is a blow struck against ceptance
the of Babel, which strives to emulate
sentence. The dictionary ceases to be a the book
scientist's acceptance of all phenomena.
for readers interested in words and sen- And it is indeed true that since the pioneer
tences; it becomes an imitation ~ the tech- work of Henry Sweet, the prototype of Hig-
nical handbooks ^ physics and chemistry.gins in Shaw's Pygmalion, much has been
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 THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR

learned as a result of applying theyears without becoming good usage. Our

sdentine
hypothesis to speech. But there areWebster
diffi- itself calls it "now chiefly dial,"
culties in the attempt to equatewhich
physical
is, I think, an error. In my experience
events and language, and it is in trying the word to is colloquial and faintly depre-
escape these difficulties that the ciatory; linguistsbut why so, when it is formed from
whose theology is embodied in the theverb
newas regularly as "request" or "de-
Webster become arbitrary and mand," absurd. and when it is (or would be) equally
Their scientific detachment deserts them; convenient? No one can tell. Again, "them"
they begin to champion the underdog lin-as a demonstrative adjective ("Hand me
guistic forms against the socially approved,them pliers") is certainly the people's choice.
and they show the precariousness of theirIt was so as far back as Chaucer, yet the
position by growing abusive and baring majority vote it has obtained in every gen-
fangs when it is challenged. eration still leaves it, in Webster's term,
A science obviously cannot admit that"substand."
from the outset language is something more Evidently caprice is at work, a whim of
than speech, and words something more iron which no scientific observation or dog-
than a device for communication. Words matic authority can reduce to order. But
what one concludes from this can take one
are nevertheless anything but neutral sym-
bols like numbers. They breed fancies andin divergent ways: one can become a lin-
guist
sport individual features. Feelings attach to or remain sensitive to the varieties of
linguistic experience. The linguist blinds
words, as may be tested by calling a stranger
a harsh name. And the feeling is not inhimself
the to the truth that language is a very
word, since the same word in an identical mixed affair, like art, love, government, his-
tone may be applied to a friend with affec-
tory; which is to say life at its most compre-
tionate intent and be received by him withhensive. Language indeed comes closest to
being the envelope of life; it is the web,
equanimity. Nor, despite all the new school-
certainly, of conscious life. As such it is not
books on Structural English, does clear com-
munication suffice to establish a form of abstractly detachable, like the segments of
words as part of the language. The latest physical experience conveniently cut off for
Webster can imply by its hospitableness study
to by science. This difference explains
barbarism that there is no such thingwhy
as it is that the linguist has no sooner
good English, no correctness in grammar, affirmed the folly of a normative grammar
syntax or diction, yet it is not English to and dictionary than he is forced to mutter
say: "What age have you?" "How much "substandard" at every other word. In this,
hour is it?" "It makes cold this night." The to be sure, the linguist is a child of the age:
system of words and ideas that constitutes "incorrect"
a being a horrid, undemocratic
language has quirks of its own and remains term, he replaces it by "substandard," which
a mystery. It looks as if it could be changedis fraternal and scientific. This is the formula
at will; it looks as if it followed natural by which we have turned in the poor in ex-
laws - vowel shifts, slurrings, inversion andchange for the underprivileged and back-
substitution of consonants, et cetera; it looks ward countries for undeveloped areas.
as if logic had no hand in its alterations; itBut little is changed in fact. There is a
looks as if reasoning were at work makingnorm, a standard, in the languages of civi-
forms alike and introducing distinctions; itlized nations, for the same reason that there
looks as if mere repetition in use warrantedare manners and customs. The difficulty of
a word or a form; it looks as if convenience ascertaining at any moment what is right in
were an irresistible cause of change - all of these modes of action does not abolish the
these are true and all false. The merest idea of Tightness, any more than the vari-
glance at history proves and disproves eachof manners abolishes manners them-
ability
of these propositions. "Invite" as aselves. nounMany people neglect to say "please"
has been in use for two hundred andand "thank you," but their omission does
fifty
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 THE SCHOLAR CORNERED

not constitute a new absence of norm; it For it is this translation of reality into
only defines their boorishness. And this per- realism that undermines both formality and
ception is not limited to the last effete rep-form in the use of language. In the novels
resentatives of a dying civilization, or booksof Sinclair Lewis, whose ear for the demotic
of etiquette would not be the perennial bestwas remarkable, phonetic renderings often
sellers that they are. One of the chief vices of replace words and phrases; Babbitt is made
the new Webster is that it flouts the strong to say: "Zizesaying." Similarly, when the
impulse toward Tightness that animates the new Webster seeks examples of adjectival
very masses whom the lexicographer means "them" it quotes the novels of educated
to flatter by his laxity charged with con- writers - Helen Eustis and Ellen Glasgow.
descension. The whole nineteenth century, the whole
Romantic revolution in poetry, lies behind
To be charitable as well as fair we must the accelerated deformation of words which
ask whether the new lexicography is not theinnew linguist thinks he discovered by
fact responding to contemporary tendencies scientific methods. At one end of the span,
in ourselves, rather than imparting to us Wordsworth
the and Victor Hugo democratize
results of objective research. Take the literature
as- by adapting the tone, diction and
sumption that speech is primary. The prop- subjects of street ballads, and at the other
osition is obviously true historically, but end,is Lewis Carroll, Mallarmé and Joyce put
it true as a social fact after three thousand the quietus to syntax and usage by punning
years of written literature? It was surely notand distorting and confusing the words of
self-evident at the beginnings of lexicogra- the tribe.
phy, which was undertaken by and for the In this task of demolition they were aided
literate. Anyone who uses words by profes- by the engineers and tradesmen who were
sion knows how important it is to preserve forging new words out of half-understood
language from confusion through misuse. Greek
A and Latin roots to denote processes
writer's or an orator's difficulties come from and products. The litter of "telephone,"
the inadequacies of the audience as much as "Kodak," and their kind continues to in-
from those of the tongue he uses. And when crease, adding acronyms and portmanteaus
literature has slowly clarified his medium (for example, Unicef and Puritron) in
for him, the good writer feels that he hasshapes and in numbers that will soon re-
entered into a contract with all his prede-quire a separate glossary, a second volume of
cessors not to debase the coinage they have Webster.
bequeathed to him. Even before that point is reached, we
This view might still prevail if modern grasp what the modern answer is to the
literature itself had not first become impa-question we started with: What is a diction-
ary? As Webster's Third New International
tient, "realistic," and tried with ever greater
fidelity to reproduce the vocables of theshows, a dictionary is a heterogeneous
marketplace. The playwright has alwayslist of vocables, abbreviations, acronyms,
done this by fits and starts, yet without in-ready-made phrases, trade and proper
fluencing the learned's notion of language.names, which have been selected on current
It was Scott and the novel descended from populist-scientific principles as constituting
him that introduced first "dial" and then
"the language." Such a dictionary is cer-
"colloq" and finally "vulg," to a point
tainly not a list of the words generally
where one must keep Partridge's Dictionary
spoken by speakers of English. DNOC is not
of Slang by one's side and learn thieves'a word, nor does it stand for a spoken por-
cant to appreciate the highest forms oftionthe of the language, since it represents
new in prose or poetry. From the moment "dinitro-ortho-cresol," which is unspeakable.
that reality is equated with the average,The
sci-so-called dictionary is thus in part a
ence and democracy and linguistic devalua-
manual of formulas; in part a handbook for
tion form a single cultural tendency. editors, scientists and other professionals.

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 THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR

cated to speak well and write correctly?

For the under-read it is also a semi-encyclo-
cultivated in the use of English words and
pedia which has an entry for "dialectical
materialism," and one for "fermaťs grammatical
princi- forms?" No linguist ever an-
swers
ple," in which it is careful to decapi such impertinent questions. The
talize
Fermat at the head of the entrystructuralist
and re- keeps saying that whatever
choice
capitalize him within, adding the dateandof
arrangement of words is "effec-
his death. tive" is or will be good speech. The lexi-
This new-style dictionary of the English cographer, who eagerly records as alterna-
language includes many foreign words other tive meanings of a word the misconceptions
than those that have been naturalized into of the illiterate, repeats that any meaning
English - the unpronounceable oeuvre, can for be attached to any sound, so why fuss
as long as we manage to "communicate."
example. In such cases, which are relatively
numerous, popular approval does not seem But effectiveness is never gauged or defined,
to function as the guardian at the gates. and the loss of distinctions, of precision, of
But then profession and performance are elegance is never brought within the scope
hard to match in a book so strangely con- of "communication." It is mere taste - aes-
ceived. I have shown that the criterion of thetics no less.
This willful neglect puts language in a
spoken usage - "language is speech" - breaks
down at the point where the thousandsunique
of position, alien to science, art and
nature too. We shore up the hills and con-
many-syllabled scientific compounds irrupt
tain the flooding streams, but we let language
and overrun the page. The same criterion
rip, recognizing nothing as error. The lexi-
is disregarded in the pronunciations offered
after such words as are, in fact, spoken.cographer
For would not tolerate error in the
scientific vocabulary: use "absorb" for "ad-
these pronunciations, given in a factitious
sorb" and he will pounce on you; no use
phonetic alphabet, are widely deviated from
by speakers of English. From Virginia pleading
to that the two words are so much
Texas, millions of people regularly alike. pro- But use "connive" for "contrive,"
duce in common words sounds that are un- and he will applaud - the language is grow-
known to this "international" dictionarying! of It's alive and evolving! Growth ap-
"the English language." The pronunciations parently means making two words do
that it does give are consequently an arbi-the work of one: "fortuitous" and "for-
trary norm for which observable reality tunate"; "precipitous" and "precipitate";
gives dubious warrant. "disinterested" and "uninterested"; "in-
On the plane of observation itself, this fer" and "imply"; "companion" and
composite glossary is equally questionable "cohort"; "complete" and "fulsome";
in its reports. It grows garrulous about "difference" and "differential"; "ele-
"ain't," saying: "though disapproved mentary"by and "elemental" - in short, a
many and more common in less educated later Webster could probably cut in half
speech, used orally in most parts of the U. the
S. abundance of the old English vocabu-
by many cultivated speakers, esp. in lary the and no one would feel the differential.
phrase ain't I." This statement goes counter The social forces and private emotions
not only to my experience but also to that that promote this general decay, misnamed
of a dozen "more educated" people whom growth
I or evolution, are not peculiar to the
have asked. Except in the jocular mode, English language and were not invented by
"ain't" is never used by those Webster callsthe science-proud partisans of linguistic
cultivated. And one is brought up shortanarchy.
by English has in fact resisted longer
than other modern European languages,
the introduction of these categories. Do they
not violate the scientific-populist scheme? such as French, perhaps because English
More or less educated to do what? - culti- was more elastic and hybrid to begin with.
vated in what respect? Could it be "edu- I cannot hope to give here a full view of

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 THE SCHOLAR CORNERED

the influences that have been aundoing part in the impoverishment that our
the work of the lettered generations. guage Thediscloses about our life.
triumph of the written word at the Webster's
expense Third New International Dic-
of oral traditions; the enlargement tionary of the English Language is thus the
of the
electorate; the establishment of public
representation between covers of a cultural
revolution.
schools for all; the spread of specialism From its tendentious title - the
with
its attendant jargons; the new pride work ofbeing
theneither Webster's nor interna-
common man, which makes him tional, and only now and then a dictionary
a pedant;
the learned ignorance of technicians andsystems and petty pedantries,
- to its silly
tradesmen; the singular ideals and theconven-
book is a faithful record of our emo-
tions developed by the press; thetional weaknesses and intellectual disarray.
gigantic
growth of advertising keeping It pace
shouldwith
contribute mightily to that health-
that of industry; the corresponding ful annihilation
revolt of a way of thought and
feeling,
against standardization, which incites to that tabula rasa from which new
every-
one to be "himself" by defying good cultural movements spring. Meanwhile the
man-
ners, to be "creative" by distorting book belongs in every "cultivated" reader's
language,
and to flout the machine by revellinglibrary ofin humor. I did not read every page,
but at least
symbol and metaphor - all these things and once in every page that I read I
more that could be pointed to have laughed.
played
Jacques Barzun

i8i

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