Glossary

“ A Glossary; or, Collection of Words, Phrases, Names, and Allusions to Customs, Proverbs, etc. Which Have Been Thought to Require Illustration, in the Works of English Authors, Particularly Shakespeare, and His Contemporaries. ”

“ Even for purely scientific purposes we require a standard of comparison and classification, as in the arrangement of words in a dictionary, where we have to decide, for instance, whether to put the original of hear under ē, īe, ī or ȳ. ”

“ The senses receive indifferently, without discretion and judgement, white and black, sweet and sour, soft and hard; for their office is only to admit their several objects, and to carry and refer the judgement thereof to the common sense.—North, Plutarch’s Lives, p. ”

“ From these glossed or annotated MSS. and interlinear versions glossaries were compiled; that is, the obscure and difficult Latin words, together with the interpretations, were excerpted and collected in separate lists, in the order in which they appeared, one after the other, in the MSS., without any alphabetical arrangement, but with the names of the authors or the titles of the books whence they were taken, placed at the head of each separate collection or chapter. In this arrangement each article by itself is called a gloss ”

“ What scholarship has agreed upon as the meaning of a word, that must be its meaning for us. Words come and words go, and change with the passing of time. We must seek, then, the sense of the word as used at the time of the work or writer studied. We must, further, determine the classification of the document concerned, whether technical, scientific, or literature for art's sake. ”

“ Every common noun, verb, adjective, adverb, and preposition is the name of a concept; for example, horse, beauty, to steal, running, over, early, yellow, grape, ocean, etc. To understand these concepts there must be somewhere a progress from the individual to the abstract, an induction from particulars to a general concept. ”

“ There are four ways and four ways only of furnishing a student with the meaning of given foreign units:
(1) By immediate association, as when we point to the object or a picture of the object designated by a noun or pronoun, when we perform the action designated by a verb, when we point to a real example of the quality designated by an adjective, or when we demonstrate in similar ways that which is designated by a preposition of place or certain categories of adverbs. ”

“ Word Selection.+—The effectiveness of our description will depend largely upon our right choice of words. If our range of vocabulary is limited, the possibility of effective description is correspondingly limited. Only when our working vocabulary contains many words may we hope to choose with ease the one most suitable for the effective expression of the idea we wish to convey. To prepare a list of words that may apply and then attempt to write a theme that shall make use of them is a mechanical process of little value. ”

“ Every general name, if used as a concrete term, has, or may have, a corresponding abstract term. Sometimes the concrete term is modified to form the abstract, as 'greedy—greediness'; sometimes a word is adapted from another language, as 'man—humanity'; sometimes a composite term is used, as 'mercury—the nature of mercury,' etc. The same concrete may have several abstract correlatives, as 'man—manhood, humanity, human nature' ”

“ And in order that the reader may find quickly what he seeks, whenever the first or second letter of a word is changed, we shall mark it with azure blue.' His preface ends with an appeal. 'This arrangement I have worked out with great labour; yet not I, but the grace of God with me. I entreat you therefore, reader, do not contemn my work as something rude and barbarous.'
The most striking feature of the dictionary is its etymology. Almost every word is supplied with a derivation, often very far-fetched. ”

“ We express in language, by means of verbs, adjectives, and equivalent expressions, what, as to their qualities, things are, what they do, and in what relation they stand. But in addition to such expressions, by which we qualify, describe, compare, and distinguish the various objects that we observe and think about, we have certain other expressions by means of which we assert that given objects are, or are real, rather than are not, or are unreal. Now, in technical phrase, we shall hereafter call the expressions of the latter type the ontological vocabulary of our language. ”

“ A Description, I conceive, can only be ranked among Definitions, when taken (as in the case of the zoological definition of man) to fulfill the true office of a Definition, by declaring the connotation given to a word in some special use, as a term of science or art: which special connotation of course would not be expressed by the proper definition of the word in its ordinary employment. ”

“ Description Defined.+—By means of our senses we gain a knowledge of the world. We see, hear, taste, smell, and feel; and the ideas so acquired are the fundamental elements of our knowledge, without which thinking would be impossible. It, therefore, happens that much of the language that we use has for its purpose the transmission to others of such ideas. Such writing is called description. We may, therefore, define description as that form of discourse which has for its purpose the formation of an image. ”

“ English etymology, or word-analysis, treats of the derivation of English words.
3. The vocabulary3 of a language is the whole body of words in that language. Hence the English vocabulary consists of all the words in the English language.
I. The complete study of any language comprises two distinct inquiries,—the study of the grammar of the language, and the study of its vocabulary. Word-analysis has to do exclusively with the vocabulary. ”

“ To express one’s thoughts correctly and with refinement requires absolute obedience to the common conventions of good literature.
The study of composition includes, first, the careful selection of materials and their effective arrangement; and second, a knowledge of the established conventions of literature: of spelling; of the common uses of the marks of punctuation,—period, question mark, exclamation point, colon, semicolon, comma; of the common idioms of our language; and of the elements of its grammar. ”

“ Of course, there must be a great diversity in the degrees of emphasis, from the slight to the vehement; but the general divisions which we have suggested will be quite sufficient for practical purposes—and we have no other in view.
“Though in all properly constructed sentences, every word is useful and necessary, yet in every sentence the relative importance of the words must be different. Articles, Prepositions, Conjunctions, and Auxiliary Verbs, for example, are less important in their significations than the words which they introduce or connect—as Nouns, Verbs, Adjectives, and Adverbs. ”

“ Point out in the following sentences a verb that states something as a fact, one that is used in asking a question, one that mentions something merely thought of, and one that expresses a command:—
The manner in which the verb presents the idea is called the mode of the verb.
A verb that is used to state something as a fact, to ask a question, or to express a condition relating to an actual state of things, is in the indicative mode; as, He reads well. Does he read well? ”

“ A compound subject or predicate consists of two or more simple subjects or predicates, joined, when necessary, by conjunctions.
Either the subject or the predicate, or both, may be compound.
The Parts of Speech
9. In accordance with their use in the sentence, words are divided into eight classes called parts of speech,—namely, nouns, pronouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, and interjections.
(1) A noun is the name of a person, place, or thing.
(2) A pronoun is a word used instead of a noun. It designates a person, place, or thing without naming it. ”

“ The object of a verb or preposition is in the objective case (p. 47) .
8. A substantive that completes the meaning of a transitive verb is called its direct object, and is said to be in the objective case (p. 48) .
9. A verb of asking sometimes takes two direct objects, one denoting the person and the other the thing (p. 50) .
10. Verbs of choosing, calling, naming, making, and thinking may take two objects referring to the same person or thing.
The first of these is the direct object, and the second, which completes the sense of the predicate, is called a predicate objective (pp. 50, 111) . ”

“ In former lectures we have confined our remarks to things and a description of their characters and relations, so that every entity of which we can conceive a thought, or concerning which we can form an expression, has been defined and described in the use of nouns and adjectives. Every thing in creation, of which we think, material or immaterial, real or imaginary, and to which we give a name, to represent the idea of it, comes under the class of words called nouns. ”

“ If the first broad outline of classification is made clear and simple, expressed in ordinary English words used in their natural sense, study and experience will presently show the worker the need for a fuller nomenclature, and he will welcome the technical words—life-casket, husk-myth, cumulative tale, and so forth—as he becomes acquainted with the ideas or the things they have been formed to describe. ”

“ As to when, and how far, and in what kind the usual furniture of elementary books of grammar, reading, and exercises should go parallel with colloquial practice, this I leave altogether in the hands of the practised teacher, being well assured that easy reading and accurate writing, so far from being inconsistent with, are the natural blossom and the ripe fruit of the root of living utterance from which I start. ”

“ If you study this lecture attentively, you will perceive, that when I say, I write, the verb is in the indicative mood; but when I say, if I write, or, unless I write, &c. the verb is in the subjunctive mood; write thou, or write ye or you, the imperative; I may write, I must write, I could write, &c. the potential; and to write, the infinitive. Any other verb (except the defective) may be employed in the same manner.
II. OF THE TENSES.
TENSE means time. ”

“ In forming our notions of what is signified by an adjective, the mind should pause to determine the meaning of such word when used as a distinct name for some object, in order to determine the import of it in this new capacity. ”

“ The verb may consist of one word—as in the examples given—or it may consist of a group of words, called a verb-group, containing sometimes as many as five words. This verb group consists of one, two, three, or four auxiliary verbs, followed by a form of the verb expressing the meaning or sense. The form of the sense-verb is an infinitive, a present participle, or a past participle.
The moon will rise. ”

“ The Individual Elements+ of which every sentence is composed are words. Every word is the sign of some idea. Each of the words horse, he, blue, speaks, merrily, at, and because, has a certain naming value, more or less definite, for the mind of the reader. ”

“ Taking pains to explain the modifications of meaning, he retained ancient terms, knowing how bewildered men become with a strange vocabulary, especially when, as in the metric nomenclature, a great batch of new words is thrown upon them at once—long and strange, and slow to yield their meaning. ”

“ In each of the preceding exercises compare your vocabulary with that of the original as to size, precision, and the grace and ease with which words are put together. Does the original employ terms unfamiliar to you? If so, look up their meaning and make them yours; then observe, when you next paraphrase the passage, whether your mastery of these terms has improved your expression.
<3. Mastery through Discourse at First Hand>
Models have their use, but you can also work without models. It is imperative that you should. ”

“ The principle of proceeding from the known to the unknown may be applied to synonyms in various ways. Two of these—the two of most importance—we must consider here.
First, you should reckon with your personal, demonstrated needs. Just as you have already analyzed your working vocabulary for its general limits and shortcomings, so should you analyze it with particular reference to your poverty in synonyms. Watch your actual speech; make a list of the words—nouns, verbs, and adjectives particularly—that you employ again and again. ”

“ In the expression, "to take for granted," we have a participle attached to a verb by means of a preposition, as an object needful to complete it; and the next group shows two nouns, "talk and discourse," combined by the conjunction "and," so as to spare the repetition of the verb "to find," to which they both serve as "objects." ”

“ When the etymology is thus adjusted, the Analogy of our language is next to be considered; when we have discovered whence our words are derived, we are to examine by what rules they are governed, and how they are inflected through their various terminations. ”

“ Concrete Terms; General vs. Specific Terms>
Abstract terms convey ideas; concrete terms call up pictures. If we say "Honesty is the best policy," we speak abstractly. Nobody can see or hear or touch the thing honesty or the thing policy; the apprehension of them must be purely intellectual. But if we say "The rat began to gnaw the rope," we speak concretely. Rat, gnaw, and rope are tangible, perceptible things; the words bring to us visions of particular objects and actions. ”

“ The fixed disposition and modes of action, or in a word, the character, of the true Scholar, when contemplated from the highest point of view, can, properly speaking, only be described, not by any means enacted or imposed. ”

“ He possessed it as every one who dabbles in poetry with us, possesses what may be called the poetical vocabulary, as distinguished from the vocabulary of common speech and of modern prose: I mean, such expressions as perchance for perhaps, spake for spoke, aye for ever, don for put on, charméd for charm’d, and thousands of others. ”

“ These lessons are of the highest value with regard to all employments of the human mind; for the mode in which words in common use acquire their meaning, approaches far more nearly to the Method of 177 Type than to the method of definition. The terms which belong to our practical concerns, or to our spontaneous and unscientific speculations, are rarely capable of exact definition. ”