Chapter 19 - Attitudes Toward “The Dictionary”

Summary

Documents attitudes of makers and users toward dictionaries and analyzes attitudes of makers and users and the sometime tension between what users expect and makers provide. Dictionaries evoke strong feelings – often of respect, even reverence, sometimes of disrespect and outrage; they play an outsized role in people’s lives because of the profoundly intimate link between a lexicon and the culture and values of the society whose lexicon it is. A dictionary is viewed by speakers of the enregistered language as a mirror reflecting their culture, and by outsiders as a window into the culture. Creation of a dictionary is itself a kind of enactment – viewed, especially by speakers whose language has not been regarded as real or equal, as recognizing their language. A few nations have instituted academies to patrol their language, in part by crafting dictionaries. Dictionary makers’ attitudes are expressed in the frontmatter and, more reliably, in the entries and contents. In recent decades, users have addressed makers directly, insisting that dictionaries speak not only to their lexical needs but that they accurately mirror their social, political, and ethical values.