DICTIONARY or a Grimm, and it is now assigned to a corps of readers whose number is limited only by the ability of the editor to obtain such assistance. The modern method of editing the material thus accumulated—the actual work of compilation — also is characterized by the application of the principle of the division of labour. Johnson boasted that his dictionary was written with but little assistance from the learned, and the same was in large measure true of that of Littre. Such attempts on the part of one man to write practically the whole of a general dictionary are no longer possible, not merely because of the vast labour and philological research necessitated by modern aims, but more especially because the immense development of the vocabulary of the special sciences renders indispensable the assistance, in the work of definition, of persons who are expert in those sciences. The tendency, accordingly, has been to enlarge greatly the editorial staff of the dictionary, scores of sub-editors and contributors being now employed where a dozen or fewer were formerly deemed sufficient. In other words, the making of a “complete” dictionary has become a co-operative enterprise, to the success of which workers in all the fields of literature and science contribute. The most complete exemplification of these principles and methods is the Oxford English Dictionary. It originated in the suggestion of Trench that an attempt should be made, under the direction of the Philological Society, to complete the vocabulary of existing dictionaries and to supply the historical information which they lacked. The suggestion was adopted, considerable material was collected, and Mr Herbert Coleridge was appointed general editor. He died in 1861, and was succeeded by Mr F. J. Furnivall. Little, however, was done, beyond the collection of quotations—about two millions of which were gathered—until in 1878 the expense of printing and publishing the proposed dictionary was assumed by the Delegates of the Clarendon Press, and the editorship was entrusted to Dr J. A. H. Murray. From that time the work has been carried on with vigour and increasing rapidity, and it will probably be completed about 1912. As the historical point of beginning, the middle of the 12th century was selected, all words that were obsolete at that date being excluded, though the history of words that were current both before and after that date is given in its entirety; and it was decided that the search for quotations—which, according to the original design, was to cover the entire literature down to the beginning of the 16th century and as much of the subsequent literature (especially the works of the more important writers and works on special subjects) as might be possible—should be made more thorough. More than 800 readers, in all parts of the world, offered their aid; and when the preface to the first volume appeared in 1888, the editor was able to announce that the readers had increased to 1300, and that three and one-half millions of quotations, taken from the writings of more than five thousand authors, had been amassed : numbers which must now be very greatly enlarged. The first part was issued in 1884, and up to April 1901 somewhat less, probably, than one-half of the work had appeared (to the word Lap, with the exception of the letter K; in five volumes and the first part of the sixth). The number of “ main words,” “ subordinate words,” and “ special combinations ” (the last term including a very large number of ordinary compounds, loose compounds, and phrases) defined in these published portions is given as 148,413, a figure which indicates a total for the whole dictionary of considerably more than 300,000. When this is compared with the 40,000 words (about) registered by Johnson, the progress made in the direction of completeness will be evident. Completeness, however, is less important than quality of work,
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and for this the dictionary is equally notable. The historical method of exposition, particularly by quotations, is applied, if not in all cases with entire success, yet, on the whole, with a regularity and a precision which leave little to be desired. A minor fault is that excerpts from second or third rate authors have occasionally been used where better ones from writers of the first class either must have been at hand or could have been found. As was said above, the literary quality of the quotation is highly important even in historical lexicography, and should not be neglected unnecessarily. Other special features of the book are the completeness with which variations of pronunciation and orthography (with dates) are given; the fulness and scientific excellence of the etymologies, which abound in new information and corrections of old errors; the phonetic precision with which the present (British) pronunciation is indicated; and the elaborate subdivision of meanings. The definitions as a whole are marked by a high degree of accuracy. Work of such magnitude and quality is possible, practically, only when the editor of the dictionary can command not merely the aid of a very large number of scholars and men of science, but their gratuitous aid. In this the Oxford Dictionary has been singularly fortunate. The conditions under which it originated, and its aim, have interested scholars everywhere, and led them to contribute to the perfecting of it their knowledge and time. The long list of names of such helpers in Dr Murray’s preface is in curious contrast with their absence from Dr Johnson’s and the few which are given in that of Littre. Of the dictionary as a whole it may be said that it is one of the greatest achievements, whether in literature or science, of the Victorian Age. The Oxford Dictionary furnishes for the first time data from which the extent of the English word-store at any given period, and the direction and rapidity of its growth, can fairly be estimated. For this purpose the materials furnished by the older dictionaries are quite insufficient, on account of their incompleteness and unhistorical character. For example, one hundred pages of the Oxford Dictionary (from the letter H) contain 1002 words, of which, as the dated quotations show, 585 were current in 1750 (though some, of course, were very rare, some dialectal, and so on), 191 were obsolete at that date, and 226 have since come into use. But of the more than 700 words — current or obsolete — which Johnson might thus have recorded, he actually did record only about 300. Later dictionaries give more of them, but they in no way show their status at the date in question. It is worth noting that the figures given seem to indicate that not very many more words have been added to the vocabulary of the language during the past one hundred and fifty years than had been lost by 1750. The pages selected, however, contain comparatively few recent scientific terms. A broader comparison would probably show that the gain has been more than twice as great as the loss. In the Deutsches Worterbuch of Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm the scientific spirit, as was said above, first found expression in general lexicography. The desirability of a complete inventory and investigation of German words was recognized by Leibnitz and by various 18th-century scholars, but the plan and methods of the Grimms were the direct product of the then new scientific philology. Their design, in brief, was to give an exhaustive account of the words of the literary language (New High German) from about the end of the 15th century, including their earlier etymological and later history, with references to important dialectal words and forms; and to illustrate their use and history abundantly by quotations. The first volume appeared in 1854. At the present time seven others have been completed, and one has nearly been finished, while parts of the remaining three (there are to be twelve in all) have been issued. Jacob Grimm (died 1863) edited the first, second (with his brother, who died in 1859), third, and a part of the fourth volumes; the others have been edited by various distinguished scholars. The scope and methods of this dictionary have been S. HI.— 56
