ENGLISH TERMINOLOGY 2

Dictionaries and defining strategies

A. Language dictionaries
1) Monolingual general language dictionaries. Types of dictionaries. (Instant synonyms &
antonyms, Thesauruses, OED, Learner’s Dictionaries, Collins Cobuild Dictionary)
(a) State the differences between a native and a learner’s dictionary.
(b) Comment on the following entries from Roget’s Thesaurus. Compare the advantages
vs. the disadvantages of such an approach. Compare them to the entries in the Instant
Synonyms & Antonyms Dictionary.

560. LANGUAGE. – N. language; phraseology, etc., 569; speech, etc., 582; tongue, lingo [chiefly
humorous or contemptuous], vernacular, mother (or vulgar, native) tongue; king’s English; dialect,
brogue, patois, idiom.
confusion of tongues, Babel; universal language, Esperanto, Ido; pantomime, dumb show.
literature, letters, polite literature, belles-lettres [F.], musea, humanities, republic of letters,
dead languages, classics.
linguist, etc. (scholar), 492.
V. express, say, express by words.
Adj. lingual, linguistic; dialectal, dialectic; vernacular, current; bilingual; polyglot; literary;
colloquial, slangy.

562. WORD. – N. word; term, vocable, name, etc., 564; phrase, etc., 566; root, derivative; part of
speech.
dictionary, lexicon, vocabulary, wordbook, index, glossary, thesaurus.
Science of language: etymology, philology; terminology; pronunciation, orthoëpy;
lexicography.
verbosity, verbiage, wordiness; loquacity, etc., 584.
V. vocalize; etymologize, derive; index; translate.
Adj. verbal, literal; derivative.
verbose, wordy, etc., 573; loquacious, etc., 584.
(from Roget’s Pocket Thesaurus, 1986)

language, speech, words, brogue, expression, vocabulary, diction, vernacular, utterance, tongue,
idiom, jargon, voice, dialect, style, patois, terminology, phraseology, philology, letter,
linguistic, literature.

wordy, verbose, diffuse, rambling, prolix, digressive, long-winded, loquacious, redundant, voluble,
talkative. Ant. terse, concise, succinct, summary, brief, laconic.
(from Instant Synonyms & Antonyms, 1990)

2) Bilingual general language dictionaries

(a) How are bilingual dictionaries organized?
(b) What is a Bridge dictionary?
3) Monolingual specialized dictionaries. (Oxford Concise Dictionary – Medical, Oxford Concise
Dictionary – Law, Dictionary of Eponyms, etc)

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 (a) EPONYMS. The items on the left refer to proper names; the items on the right define
words or phrases that are derived from these proper names. Match them.

1. city of Morocco ___ a. a red cap, shaped like a truncated cone, with a black tassel,
worn esp. by men in the Near East
2. a town in Pennsylvania ___ b. extremely small; petty or trivial.
3. a German state ___ c. a type of fine porcelain
4. a town in Belgium ___ d. a broad-wheeled covered wagon, used esp. in North
America during the early westward migration.
5. a valley in West Germany ___ e. a breed of black-and-white dairy cattle yielding large
quantities of low-fat milk.
6. a city in East Germany ___ f. a member of any various ancient and modern peoples
including the Hebrews and Arabs.
7. an American horticulturist ___ g. a large, cylindrical canvas bag for carrying personal effects
8. a fictitious country inhabited by h. a plant native to tropical America, with tiny flowers,
tiny people ___ surrounded by large, bright-red leaves.
9. a US minister to Mexico ___ i. a member of an extinct race of prehistoric people who lived
in caves; rugged or uncouth
10. a son of Noah ___ h. the large, dark-red, acid fruit of a blackberry-like plant

(b) WORD ROOTS. Each of the following words stems from one of the three sources
shown. Choose the correct answer.
1. contraband a) from Latin contra bonos mores, “contrary to good manners”
b) from Italian contrabbando, “against the law”
c) from Latin contractio, “a drawing together”
2. chiffon a) from Swiss German schiffli, “little ship”
b) from chiffonier, “high chest of drawers”
c) from French chiffe, “rag”
3. soldier a) from Latin solidus, “pay”
b) from Latin solea, “flatfish”
c) from the Greek town Soloi, known for its corrupt citizenry
4. battle a) from Middle French battre, “to beat”
b) from Latin battualia, “gladiatorial exercises”
c) from “(who is) better”
5. petard a) from Latin petitionis, “to seek”
b) from Latin petulantia, “impudence”
c) from Middle French peter, “to break wind”
6. sabotage a) from Hebrew shabath, “to rest”
b) from French sabre, “saber”
c) from French sabot, “wooden shoe”
7. cosmic a) from Hebrew kasher, “right”
b) from Greek kosmos, “world”
c) from Greek katholikos, “universal”
8. author a) from Latin auctor, “originator”
b) from Greek autarchia, “self-rule”
c) from Italian artigiano, “skilled craftsman”
9. attorney a) from Latin attrius, “rubbed away”
b) from Latin attingere, “to touch upon”
c) from Anglo-French attourne, “turned”
10. tulip a) from Tulle, a city in France
b) from Turkish tulbend, “turban”
c) from Old English toth, “tooth”

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 (c) Translate the following into Romanian:
A Mountain out of a Molehill
By Isaac Asimov
To the Greeks chaos was primeval matter in total disorder. Cosmos, on the other hand, was
the same matter in some appearance of order.
The creation of the universe, then, was not the creation of matter; that already existed. It
was the creation of order.
Anything that imposes disorder on matter originally in order is chaotic. On the other hand,
anything that imposes order on matter originally in disorder is cosmetic.
And now we know what it is that a woman does when she uses cosmetics to make up her
face.

4) Bi- and multilingual specialized dictionaries

(a) Comment on the lexical entries supplied by the Elsevier (Multilingual) Dictionary of
Chemistry (see Annex)
(b) Describe the lay out of the lexical entry.
(c) What is the justification of multi-lingual dictionaries, according to Zgusta?

B. Lexicographic methods
1) Early methods
(a) What dictionary was the basis for the Oxford English Dictionary, as we know it today?
(b) Who were the influences on Johnson’s dictionary?
(c) Give the two basic lexicographic principles cited in the Preface to the Compact Oxford
English Dictionary.
(d) What was Johnson’s first step in compiling his dictionary?
(e) How were dictionary entries traditionally modeled in the OED?
2) The Cobuild approach. How is it different from the traditional approach?
3) The Explanatory combinatorial dictionary (ECD)
(a) Describe this approach.
(b) Define: entry, super-entry.

Practical exercises
1. Substitutable defining strategy. False Impressions. Match the numbers on the left to the
letters on the right.

1. “hangnail” does not hang but __ a) the first part of the term is related to the Latin
word acus.
2. “mushroom” is not a room in which we b) actually means “choice”.
eat mush but __
3. “outrage” does not contain the words c) comes from a word referring to a choice of
“out” and “rage” but __ conveyance.
4. “titmouse” is not a mouse with prominent d) is a single word coming from Medieval Latin.
breasts but __
5. “scot-free” does not mean free like a e) is derived from two unrelated old words.
Scotsman but __
6. “mohair” is not related to “hair” but __ f) comes from a Latin word for “beyond”, plus a
common prefix.
7. “piggyback” was not invented by or for g) refers to something in the water and to invisible
pigs but __ parts of our body.
8. “catgut” was not named for the gut of h) reflects the approximate pronunciation of a
cats but __ French word.

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9. “forlorn hope” is not derived from “hope” i) is a word that expresses pain.
but __
10. “ear of corn” has nothing to do with an j) has something to do with the tax collector.
ear but __
11. “Key West” neither is a key we put into k) originally referred to losing one’s way.
a lock nor does it lie in the west but __
12. “crayfish” is not a fish and is not even l) has an origin that remains unexplained.
derived from the word “fish” but __

Optional activity
The Devil’s Dictionary is a philosophical satire, its present-day significance may be somewhat related to the
philosophy which it reflects. Its author, Ambrose Bierce, while well read, was no formal philosopher, and
his ideas having been established in a period contemporary with Nietzsche and prior to Marx, Freud, or the
moderns, may seem lacking in relation to present-day thought. It is interesting however to observe how
many of these ‘demoniac’ concepts resemble, at least incipiently, the existentialist ideas of today. The
Devil’s Dictionary, begun as a weekly column when Bierce was a journalist, and developed into a full-scale
satire, is, as he says, a punishment for rascals. Bierce became known as the “laughing devil” of the San
Francisco news media and his lampoons on religion, marriage, politics and society made him both the
literary delight and the dreaded scourge of the Pacific coast. Written with wit rather than humor, it is to be
savoured by those ‘enlightened souls who prefer dry wines to sweet, sense to sentiment’.

2. Comment upon the following dictionary definitions:

Dictionary, n. A malevolent literary device for cramping the growth of a language and making it hard and
inelastic. The present dictionary, however, is one of the most useful works that its author Dr. John Satan,
has ever produced. It is designed to be a compendium of everything that is known up to date of its
completion, and will drive a screw, repair a red wagon or apply for a divorce. It is a good substitute for
measles, and will make rats come out of their holes to die. It is a dead shot for worms, and children cry
for it.
Lexicographer, n. A pestilent fellow who, under the pretense of recording some particular stage in the
development, of a language, does what he can to arrest its growth, stiffen its flexibility and mechanize
its methods. For your lexicographer, having written his dictionary, comes to be considered ‘as one
having authority’, whereas his function is only to make a record, not to give a law. The natural servility
of the human understanding having invested him with judicial power, surrenders its right of reason and
submits itself to a chronicle as if it were a statue. Let the dictionary (for example) mark a good word as
‘obsolete’ or ‘obsolescent’ and few men thereafter venture to use it, whatever their need of it and
however desirable its restoration to favor – whereby the process of impoverishment is accelerated and
speech decays. On the contrary, the bold and discerning writer who, recognizing the truth that language
must grow by innovation if it grow at all, makes new words and uses the old in an unfamiliar sense, has
no following and is tartly reminded that ‘it isn’t the dictionary’ – although down to the time of the first
lexicographer (Heaven forgive him!) no author ever had used a word that was in the dictionary. In the
golden prime and high noon of the English speech; when from the lips of the great Elizabethans fell
words and made their own meaning and carried it in their very sound; when a Shakespeare and a Bacon
were possible, and the language now rapidly perishing at one end and slowly renewed at the other was in
vigorous growth and hardy preservation – sweeter than honey and stronger than a ion – the
lexicographer was a person unknown, the dictionary a creation which his Creator had not created him to
create.
God said: ‘Let Spirit perish into Form,’
And lexicographers arose, a swarm!
Thought fled and left her clothing, which they took,
And catalogued each garment in a book.
Now, from her leafy covert when she cries:
‘Give me my clothes and I’ll return,’ they rise
And scan the list, and say without compassion
‘Excuse us – they are mostly out of fashion.’
Sigismund Smith
(from The Enlarged Devil’s Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce)