Dictionaries and the Authoritarian Tradition: Study in English Usage and Lexicography

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Preface 1. THE ORIGINS OF ENGLISH LEXICOGRAPHY 1.1. Early word lists 1.2. The first English dictionaries: the ‘hard words’ tradition 1.3. The comprehensive English dictionary 1.4. Inductive method 1.5. The historical principle 2. THE AUTHORITARIAN TRADITION IN LANGUAGE: ENGLAND 2.1. Toward an academy of the English language 2.2. The need for an English dictionary 2.3. The dictionary as authority: Samuel Johnson 2.4. The reception of Johnson’s Dictionary 3. THE AUTHORITARIAN TRADITION IN LANGUAGE: AMERICA 3.1. Proposals for an American academy 3.2. Authoritarian attitudes and Anglophilia 3.3. Noah Webster’s linguistic patriotism 3.4. Spelling reform 3.5. Webster’s influence on American spelling 3.6. Webster’s American Dictionary 3.7. The ‘war of the dictionaries’ 3.8. Linguistic conservatism: renewed efforts for an American academy 4. THE SECOND DICTIONARY WAR: WEBSTER’S THIRD NEW INTERNATIONAL DICTIONARY 4.1. The new authoritarianism 4.2. Three reviews 4.3. Rebuttal 5. LEXICOGRAPHY AND ENGLISH USAGE 5.1. Usage information in the early dictionaries 5.2. The authority of the dictionary 5.3. Usage orientation in modern dictionaries 5.4. The situational dimension 5.5. The situational and modal dimensions confused: the colloquial label 5.6. The usage note 5.7. The verbal illustration 5.8. The synonymy 5.9. Conclusions Bibliography