EXCISE - a hateful tax levied upon commodities, and adjudged not by the common judges of property, but wretches hired by those to whom excise is paid.
OATS - a grain, which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people.
PATRON - one, who countenances, supports or protects.
PENSION - an allowance made to anyone without an equivalent. In England it's generally understood to mean pay given to a state hireling for treason to his country.
His definitions sometimes got him into trouble. He was threatened with libel over excise, and much lampooned over pension.
So Johnson's Dictionary was the first attempt at a truly principled lexicography. It portrayed the complexity of the lexicon and of English usage more accurately than ever before; and his quotations initiated a practice which has informed English dictionaries ever since. The dictionary influenced normalization of the English vocabulary but at the same time it helped to preserve the English spelling in its conservative form.
In 1857 the Philological Society of Great Britain, noting the inadequacies of the English dictionaries then available, adopted the decision to compile a dictionary including all the words existing in the language from Anglo-Saxon times.
Twenty six years later in 1884 the first volume was published; it contained words ginning with A and B. The editor of this dictionary was James A. H. Murray. The aim was to produce a 4-volume work in a period of 10 years; but after 5 years, Murray and his colleagues had managed to complete only the section A-ANT; it was 352 pages, and sold for 62 Ѕ p in modern money. It was evident that the dictionary was a much greater work than had been envisaged. Additional editors were appointed and the last volume was published in 1928, the dictionary was called NED (New English Dictionary). It contained 12 volumes, comprising 15,487 pages and covering 414,825 lexical items.
In 1933 the dictionary was republished under the title «The Oxford English Dictionary» because the work on this dictionary was conducted at Oxford. The dictionary contained 13 volumes. Work on the dictionary recommended in1957, with the appointment of R.W. Burchfield to edit a new supplement. This appeared in 4 volumes between 1972 and 1986, and included the content of the 1933 work: it added 5,732 pages to the dictionary, and nearly 70,000 further lexical items.
As it was large and very expensive scientists continued their work and made shorter editions of the dictionary. The shorter Oxford dictionary contained the same number of entries but far less examples from literature. They also compiled a Concise Oxford Dictionary. It contained only one volume and no examples at all.
American lexicography began to develop much later at the end of the 18th century. The most famous American dictionary was compiled by Noah Webster. In 1828 he published a two volume dictionary (70,000 words), which was called American Dictionary of the English language. He tried to simplify English spelling and transcription. The work greatly improved the coverage of scientific and technical terms, as well as terms to do with American culture and institutions and added a great deal of encyclopedic information. A new feature was the introduction of Webster's own etymologies - though the speculative nature of many of these was an early source of unwelcome criticism. The spellings were somewhat more conservative than those used in the 1806 book. Its pronunciations were generally provincial in character - those of Webster's own New England. The label «American» in the title is more a reflection of the works of American authors referred to than of its uniquely American lexicon. Indeed, at one point Webster observed that «there were not 50 words in all which were used in America and not in England». On the other hand, nearly half of the words he did include are not to be found in Johnson's Dictionary, which added considerable force to his claim that he was giving lexicography a fresh direction.
Despite its weaknesses and its critics, the American Dictionary made Webster a household name in the USA. It was fiercely attacked in Britain for its Americanism especially in matters of spelling and usage; but the work was crucial in giving to US English an identity and status comparable to that given to the British English lexicon by Dr Johnson.
Indeed, it's difficult to appreciate today the impact which Webster's Dictionary made at the time, and just how authoritative the book was perceived to be. After Webster's death (1843), the rights were purchased by George and Charles Merriam, and later editions have appeared under the name of Merriam-Webster. A revision in 1847 was edited by Webster's son-in-law, Chauncey A. Goodrich. Several dictionaries within this tradition appeared in the following decades, via the Webster's International Dictionary of 1890 to the Webster's New International Dictionary of 1909, with a second edition in 1934. The 3rd edition appeared in 1961, edited by Philip B. Gove, based on a collection of over 6 million citations of usage, and dealing with over 450,000 words. This edition prepared over a 10-year period, took up 757 editor-years, and proved to be highly controversial. Three supplements later appeared - of 6,000 words (1976), 89,000 words (1983), and 12,000 words (1986), and a CD is also available. Outside of this tradition, many other publishers have come to use the «Webster» name for their dictionaries and word-books.
The largest dictionary in the world is "het Woordenboek der Nederlansche Taal (WNT)" (the Dictionary of the Dutch language). It took 134 years to create the dictionary (1864 - 1998). It consists of approximately 400,000 words on 45805 pages in 92000 columns.
A Brief History of English Lexicography
(1) Latin and French Glossaries
Year
Author /Editor
Dictionary
Size /Type
1440
Parvulorum
Storehouse [of words] for children or clerics
English-Latin
1476
Caxton
Printing in England
1480
French-English Glossary
French-English
1499
Promptorium
"hard words"
1500
Hortus Vocabularum
Garden of Words
Latin-English
1533
John Withals
A Short Dictionary for Yong Beginners
1538
Sir Thomas Elyot
Dictionary (Bibliotheca Eliotae)
1565
Thomas Cooper
Thesaurus of the Roman Tongue and the British
(2) Early English Dictionaries: The Seventeenth Century
1552
Richard Huloet
Abecedarium Anglo-Latinum
English-Latin-(Fr.)
1582
Richard Mulcaster
Elementary
8,000 words
1588
Thomas Thomas
Dictionarium Linguae Latinae et Anglicanae
1598
John Florio
A World of Words
Italian-English
1604
Robert Cawdrey
A Table Alphabetical
2,500 words
1616
John Bullokar
An English Expositor
5,000 words
1623
Henry Cockeram
The English Dictionary
3 parts
1656
Thomas Blount
Glossographia
1658
Edward Phillips
The New World of English Words
1673
A World of Errors Discovered in the New World of Words
1676
Elisha Coles
An English Dictionary
25,000 words
(3) The Beginning of Modern Dictionary Practice: The Eighteenth Century
1702
John Kersey
A New English Dictionary
28,000 words
1704
John Harris
An Universal English Dictionary of Arts and Sciences
1706
Philips's New World of English Words
38,000 words
1721
Nathan Bailey
An Universal Etymological English Dictionary
40,000 words
1727
An Universal Etymological English Dictionary Volume II
2 parts
1728
Ephraim Chambers
An Universal Dictionary of Arts and Sciences
1730
Dictionarium Britannicum
48,000 words
1747
Samuel Johnson
Plan of a Dictionary of the English Language
1749
Benjamin Martin
Lingua Britannica Reformata
1755
A New Universal English Dictionary
(4) Dictionaries of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries
1757
James Buchanan
Linguae Britannicae
1764
William Johnston
Pronouncing and Spelling Dictionary
John Entick
Spelling Dictionary
1773
William Kenrick
A New Dictionary of the English Language
1780
Thomas Sheridan
A General Dictionary of the English Language
1783
Noah Webster
The American Spelling Book
1791
John Walker
Critical Pronouncing Dictionary and Expositor of the English Language
1818
Henry Todd
Johnson's Dictionary
1820
Albert Chalmers
Todd-Johnson with Walker's Pronunciations
1828
Joseph E. Worcester
Chalmers's Dictionary
An American Dictionary of the English Language
1830
Joseph Worcester
Comprehensive Pronouncing and Explanatory Dictionary of the English Language
1837
Charles Richardson
A New Dictionary of the English Language (cf. OED)
1841
An American Dictionary of the English Language new edition
1846
Universal and Critical Dictionary of the English Language
1857
Richard Chenevix Trench
Some Deficiencies in Our English Dictionaries (cf. OED)
1860
A Dictionary of the English Language
1864
Noah Porter
1882
Charles Annandale
The Century Dictionary
1890
George and Charles Merriam
International Dictionary
1893
Funk & Wagnalls
Standard Dictionary of the English Language
(5) Dictionaries of the 20th Century
1909
1913
New Standard Dictionary of the English Language
1927
The New Century Dictionary
1928
Oxford English Dictionary
1934
Webster's New International Dictionary
1938
Irving Lorge & Edward Thorndike
A Semantic Count of English Words
1947
American College Dictionary
New College Standard
1953
David Guralnik & Joseph Friend
Webster's New World Dictionary of the American Language
1961
Philip Babcock Gove
Webster's Third New International Dictionary
1963
Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary
1966
Random House
The Random House Dictionary of the English Language
1968
Random House Dictionary, College Edition (Random House College Dictionary)
1969
American Heritage Dictionary
1973
Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary
1983
Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary
Страницы: 1, 2, 3