Author: Robert Cawdry
Publisher: Scholars Facsimilies & Reprint
Published: 1604
Total Pages: 130
ISBN-13: 9780820110073
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →The first English dictionary, this lexicographic milestone reflects Elizabethan ideas & tastes.
Author: Sarah Ogilvie
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2020-09-24
Total Pages: 410
ISBN-13: 1108568459
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →How did a single genre of text have the power to standardise the English language across time and region, rival the Bible in notions of authority, and challenge our understanding of objectivity, prescription, and description? Since the first monolingual dictionary appeared in 1604, the genre has sparked evolution, innovation, devotion, plagiarism, and controversy. This comprehensive volume presents an overview of essential issues pertaining to dictionary style and content and a fresh narrative of the development of English dictionaries throughout the centuries. Essays on the regional and global nature of English lexicography (dictionary making) explore its power in standardising varieties of English and defining nations seeking independence from the British Empire: from Canada to the Caribbean. Leading scholars and lexicographers historically contextualise an array of dictionaries and pose urgent theoretical and methodological questions relating to their role as tools of standardisation, prestige, power, education, literacy, and national identity.
Author: Simon Winchester
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Published: 2004
Total Pages: 294
ISBN-13: 9780192805768
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →"We visit the ugly corrugated iron structure that Murray grandly dubbed the Scriptorium -- the Scrippy or the Shed, as locals called it -- and meet some of the legion of volunteers, from Fitzedward Hall, a bitter hermit obsessively devoted to the OED, to W.C. Minor, whose story is one of dangerous madness, ineluctable sadness, and ultimate redemption. The Meaning of Everything is a scintillating account of the creation of the greatest monument ever erected to a living language. Simon Winchester's supple, vigorous prose illuminates this dauntingly ambitious project -- a seventy-year odyssey to create the grandfather of all word-books, the world's unrivaled uber-dictionary. Book jacket."--Jacket.