“瘋狂……賦予了我們語言！”
我在此分享五句摘自一本書的名言，身為文字愛好者，我對此書愛不釋手——
《教授與瘋子：謀殺、瘋狂與牛津英語詞典的編纂》（西蒙溫徹斯特著）
哈珀柯林斯出版社，1998年。
「之後，對於每一個詞，都應該有相應的句子來展現其意義的曲折變化——幾乎每個詞都像魚兒般銀光閃閃地遊走，蜿蜒曲折，增添微妙的細微差別，然後又可能根據公眾情緒的變化而捨棄它們。”
「準確定義詞語是一門精妙而獨特的技藝。其中不乏規則——例如，一個詞（以名詞為例）必須首先根據其所屬的類別進行定義（例如，哺乳動物、四足動物），然後再將其與該類別中的其他成員區分開來（例如，牛科動物、雌性）。 ow」（母牛）含義廣泛，「cower」（畏縮）含義卻基本只有一個——那麼這些含義都必須一一列出。此外，定義中的所有詞語都必須能在詞典的其他條目中找到——讀者絕不能偶然發現詞典中某個無法在其他地方找到的詞語。如果定義者能夠遵循所有這些規則，並始終得到一個優雅——如果他可能很優雅——那麼優雅
“告別怯懦——新的選擇。” “從語文學上的試探性到詞典編纂上的決定性。”
「儘管當時學術活動十分活躍，但市面上卻沒有任何一本語言指南，沒有任何一本語言學百科全書，莎士比亞、馬丁·弗羅比舍、弗朗西斯·德雷克、沃爾特·雷利、弗朗西斯·培根、埃德蒙·斯賓塞、克里斯托弗·馬洛、托馬斯·納什、約翰·鄧恩、本·瓊森、伊薩克·沃爾頓，以及其他任何一位閱讀的同代人。
「字典編纂這項孤獨而艱辛的工作，以及像默里和邁納這樣的人曾與之頑強鬥爭並最終戰勝的文字暗流，如今至少得到了豐厚的回報。十二卷巨著；414,825個詞條的定義；使用了1,827,306條例證引文，僅威廉·邁納一人就貢獻了數萬條。
這是一個非凡的故事，講述了兩位傑出人物的執著追求，最終成就了文學史上最偉大的成就——《牛津英語詞典》（OED）。我強烈推薦這本書給所有熱愛文字、英語或精彩歷史偵探故事的人。你也可以觀看同名電影。
我個人非常感激這兩位所取得的成就。雖然我沒有20卷本的《牛津英語詞典》（但我打算將來擁有），但我擁有最接近它的版本——兩卷本的《簡明牛津英語詞典》，它是《牛津英語詞典》的節略本，我非常喜歡它，我認為每個人的私人藏書都應該包含它（即使沒有20卷本的《牛津英語詞典》）。
"MADNESS . . . GAVE US WORDS!"
I'm sharing here 5 quotes from a book that, as a lovers of words, I really savor -
'The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary' by Simon Winchester
Harper Collins 1998.
"And after that, and also for each word, there should be sentences that show the twists and turns of meanings—the way almost every word slips in its silvery, fishlike way, weaving this way and that, adding subtleties of nuance to itself, and then perhaps shedding them as public mood dictates."
"Defining words properly is a fine and peculiar craft. There are rules—a word (to take a noun as an example) must first be defined according to the class of things to which it belongs (mammal, quadruped), and then differentiated from other members of that class (bovine, female). There must be no words in the definition that are more complicated or less likely to be known that the word being defined. The definition must say what something is, and not what it is not. If there is a range of meanings of any one word—cow having a broad range of meanings, cower having essentially only one—then they must be stated. And all the words in the definition must be found elsewhere in the dictionary—a reader must never happen upon a word in the dictionary that he or she cannot discover elsewhere in it. If the definer contrives to follow all these rules, stirs into the mix an ever-pressing need for concision and elegance—and if he or she is true to the task, a proper definition will probably result.
"An end to timidity - the replacement of the philologically tentative by the lexicographically decisive."
"Despite all the intellectual activity of the time there was in print no guide to the tongue, no linguistic vade mecum, no single book that Shakespeare or Martin Frobisher, Francis Drake, Walter Raleigh, Francis Bacon, Edmund Spenser, Christopher Marlowe, Thomas Nash, John Donne, Ben Jonson, Izaak Walton, or any of their other learned contemporaries could consult."
"The lonely drudgery of lexicography, the terrible undertow of words against which men like Murray and Minor had so ably struggled and stood, now had at least it's great reward. Twelve mighty volumes; 414,825 words defined; 1,827,306 illustrative quotations used, to which William Minor alone had contributed scores of thousands."
It is an extraordinary tale of the incredible obsessions of two remarkable men that led to the making of the greatest achievement in literary history, the OED (the Oxford English
Dictionary). I really recommend this book to anyone who loves words, English language, or a great historical detective story. You can also watch the movie on it that came out with the same title.
I personally am really grateful to these two people for what they have achieved. Although I don't own the 20 volume OED (I do intend to, one day), I have the nearest thing to it, the 2 volume 'The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary', which is the abridgement of the OED, and which I really love, and should be in everyone's private library (if not the 20 volume OED).
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