The Etymologicon: A Circular Stroll through the Hidden Connections of the English Language

Dick Snary

It’s absolutely necessary and fitting that a book such as this should devote a chapter to Samuel Johnson’s dictionary. So we won’t. After all, Johnson didn’t write the first English dictionary. There were plenty before him and there have been plenty since. The chief recommendation of Johnson’s is that he defines a cough as: ‘A convulsion of the lungs, vellicated by some sharp serosity.’

Dictionaries had been around for ages before the Doctor. Johnson’s dictionary was published in 1755 but the joke name Richard Snary was first recorded in 1627. Who was Richard Snary?

A word is always older than its pun. The word dictionary was invented by an Englishman called John of Garland in 1220. But it wasn’t what we would call a dictionary; he had merely written a book to help you with your Latin diction.

The first dictionaries that we would recognise were dual-language ones for the use of translators. For example, the Abecedarium Anglico Latinum of 1552 is a terribly useful volume if you want to know that the Latin word for wench always beaten about the shoulders is scapularis. It also contains English words of indescribable beauty like wamblecropt (afflicted with queasiness) that have since vanished from the language.

The first dictionary that wasn’t just there to help translators was Cawdrey’s Table Alphebetical of 1604, which is a list of ‘hard usual English words’ like concruciate (to torment or vex together), deambulation (a walking abroade), querimonious (full of complaining and lamentation), spongeous (like a sponge), and boat (boat).

However, the first English dictionary that actually had dictionary in the title was Henry Cockeram’s The English Dictionarie, or, An Interpreter of Hard English Words, which hit the printing presses in 1623. Again, it’s not complete, but it is useful. Before 1623 there were actually people who didn’t know that an acersecomicke was one whose haire was never cut, or that an adecastick is one that will doe just howsoever. After 1623 they could look up such useful terms, and four years later Dick Snary was born.

Next up was Nathan Bailey’s Universal Etymological Dictionary of 1721 that contained 40,000 words, which is only a couple of thousand short of Dr Johnson’s. The point of Johnson’s dictionary is not that it was bigger or more accurate than the others (although it was slightly both); the point of Johnson’s dictionary was that it was Johnson’s. The most learned man in Britain had poured out his learnedness onto the page.

Suppose that you were an early eighteenth-century Englishman and you were arguing with a friend about the meaning of the word indocility. You pull out your copy of Nathan Bailey’s Universal Etymological Dictionary, you flip through the pages and you find:

You sit back with a smug smile on your face, until your friend asks who this Nathan Bailey guy is anyway? ‘Well,’ you mumble, ‘he’s a schoolmaster from Stepney.’

Not that impressive.

But Doctor Johnson, on the other hand, was the foremost scholar of Britain. So his definition of indocility:

Well, that had the authority of Dr Johnson behind it. It did not, though, stop Bailey’s dictionary outselling Johnson’s by a country mile.

Then came Noah Webster, who was an immensely boring man and can usefully be skipped; so that we can get straight on to the OED, which is the greatest dictionary ever. Nor is that opinion a case of anglocentric chauvinism, as the OED was largely the result of the collaboration between a Scotsman and an American. Its story also involves murder, prostitutes, and all sorts of other fun stuff. In fact, those of a weak disposition should skip the following chapter, as the story of the Oxford English Dictionary is too scary for most and will probably give you nightmares.

Still here? Right, for those who wish to continue, what is the medical term for slicing off your own penis, and how does it relate to the OED?