Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-v9fdk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-15T13:12:13.898Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Making a North American Dictionary after Avis*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 June 2016

Thomas E. Toon
Thomas E. Toon*
Affiliation:
University of Michigan
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Dr. Johnson impugned his fellow dictionary makers by defining a lexicographer as a harmless drudge. Were a present day dictionary maker to take a Johnsonian editorial liberty and use Walter S. Avis as a personal example in defining lexicographer, that famous definition would need to take a very different form. One would have to include such adjectives as generous, tireless, dedicated, farseeing, and innovative. Avis knew circumstantially that the modern lexicographer can occasionally be elevated above the status of mere “harmless drudge,” but certainly Dr. Johnson could not have been expected to anticipate the kind of dilemma Avis described in “Trade Names, Lexicographers, and the Law” (1978).

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Linguistics/Revue canadienne de linguistique , Volume 26 , Issue S1 , Spring 1981 , pp. 142 - 149
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Linguistic Association 1981

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

I would like to thank Mrs. Laquetta Karch for her careful and diligent help in compiling these data.

References

Avis, Walter S. (1967) A Dictionary of Canadianisms on Historical Principles. Toronto: Gage.Google Scholar
Avis, Walter S. (1975) “Trade Names, Lexicographers, and the Law,” in Vincent, Thomas, Parker, George, and Bonnycastle, Stephen, eds, Essays and Articles. Kingston: Royal Military College of Canada, 1978, pp. 13–18.Google Scholar
Avis, Walter S. (1978) “A Lexicographer looks at Language,” in Essays and Articles.Google Scholar
Craigie, Sir William A. (1938) A Dictionary of American English (with Hubert, James R.). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Mathews, Mitford M. (1951) A Dictionary of Americanisms on Historical Principles. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Mattison, R. H. (1966) Henry A. Boiler: Missouri Fur Trader. Bismark N. D.: State Historical Society.Google Scholar
Quaife, Milo Milton (1959) Among the Indians (by Boller, Henry A.). Chicago: R. R. Donnelley & Sons Company.Google Scholar
Toon, Thomas E. (1979) “Riding Point on the Lexicon of the North American West.” Dictionaries 1: 57–68.Google Scholar
Webster, Noah (1828) An American Dictionary of the English Language. New York: S. Converse.Google Scholar