Our local language fanatic has got me thinking about dictionaries.
I suppose all languages have them.
I knew a guy who wrote dictionaries. You know those cheapy pocket ones (I’m already tired of typing dictionaries) or the student ones that sell for a couple bucks.
No his name wasn’t Webster or Funk or Wagnell. It was Peck . He’s dead so I’m sure he don’t care if I tell it.
As an amateur wordy, he and I talked alot about his profession. He was a really intelligent and interesting person ( except he tried to convince me to invest in copper mines once, he lost a mint on that one).
I told him I got more use from a scrabble dict. and a crossword dict. than an elaborate annotated, expanded fancy ass one on the pedestal at the library. He laughed about that.
His dict. even though small and portable still took a team to write. He expounded that they only used the top 2 or 3 definitions and one paragraphed grammatical pronunciation expanse.
No ways to use the word or pluralizing or anything. Teachers didn’t want that in student dicts.
I was truly eye opened by this. Seems they were missing a teaching moment. Oh well.
Every time I see a dict. in a flea market or garage sale I look on the authors page to see if a Peck is there. Never found it yet.
Do y’all think he was lying to me? He lived in a nice home and seemed affluent. Never did any work outside the home.
So look in your dicts. for a Peck.
Oh god, what have I done?
Hahaha.
When I was little, before my biological father completely pickled his brain with alcohol, he used to encourage me to study the dictionary. He kept a little pocket one that he studied. An unlikely dude for that, he barely finished high school if at all, never aspired to much, just worked and drank, but he believed in the value of a good vocabulary. And he taught me how to play Scrabble. Just a weird little memory.
Harry Thurston Peck, the editor of Harper’s Dictionary died in 1914. How old are you??? Perhaps you converse with ghosts.
Well, I’m not that old.
Maybe they were related.
Or, maybe… just maybe, I knew him in my former life.
I blame the cute little yellow pills I’m on at the moment.
You’re probably NOT gonna see his name on the title page of a dictionary. Merriam-Webster, for instance, has a number of pocket dictionaries, and has had hundreds of editors. They may be listed on the verso of a title page, or at the end of a dictionary, but it would be just one quick mention, probably with his title.
A quick run through Amazon found nothing much.
That OP seriously needs dict. pics.
I swear, I’m not doing this on purpose.
Hmmmm, I’m not so sure.
There are probably some field linguists working on the first dictionary and grammar of some obscure language spoken by 42 persons on some remote island at this very moment.
I used to do the same when I was done with my homework. And while my parents definitely made it clear that they expected me to take school very seriously, they never insisted on that.
Beck, his name wasn’t Malcolm, was it? Can’t be, as apparently ol’ Mal is still alive and dictating. Plus he’s only written one dictionary, The Historical Dictionary of the Gulf Arab States.
Maybe your Peck used a nom de plume, like Johnson or Willy.
Don’t do that to me!
Aaaaacccckkk!
His name was Dale but he spelled it Dell which he unfailingly would spell out for you if just meeting you.
Weird man. He home canned a meat product that he invented. It was like really bad devilled ham. (That was a singularly bad dinner party, never made that mistake again!)
Did you bring enough for everyone?
This talk of dict. pics has inspired me to count up my dictionaries. I have too many.
If you have a Peck in your dict. let us know.
That sounds like a raunchy recursion.