#dictionary collection

[uispeccoll]

#MiniatureMonday

You’ll need your magnifying glass for this one!

Here we have two copies of the Smallest English Dictionary in the World, Published in Glasgow around 1900 by David Bryce and Sons. Coming in at just over an inch tall (27mm) and set at 1 ½ point font, this might just be one of the smallest English language dictionaries in the world.

One of these copies is enclosed in a metal case that could be worn on a chain around the neck. The glass on the front of the locket is actually a magnifying glass, used to read the entries.

Smith Miniatures Collection PE1625 .S63 1900z copies 2 and 3

[uwmspeccoll]

Milestone Monday

April 15th is National American Sign Language (ASL) Day, observed annually to celebrate the ASL community and its contributions to inclusivity, and to encourage folks to learn the language. Regarded as a natural language, sign language has likely existed for as long as there has been a need to communicate, however, the emergence of ASL is largely credited to Thomas Gallaudet (1787-1851) founder of the American School for the Deaf. Uniting deaf children from the western hemisphere the American School for the Deaf was fertile soil for language contact, developing ASL from French Sign Language, village sign languages, and home sign systems. Today, more than a half-million people throughout the United States use ASL to communicate as their native language. 

In recognition of the day, we’re sharing another book from our Historical Curriculum Collection the Basic Pre-School Signed English Dictionary published by Gallaudet College Press in 1973. Signed English features drawn signs with written instructions to represent 975 words most frequently used by and with pre-school children. The editors also include sign markers and the American Manual Alphabet to be used in conjunction with the vocabulary, encouraging a language that is adaptable and offers a more complete English model of communication. 

Signed English was edited in part by Harry Bornstein and Karen Saulnier who worked on several signing books for young readers throughout the 70s, 80s, and 90s, and illustrated by Jack Fennell and Ann Silver. 

Read other Milestone Monday posts here! 

– Jenna, Special Collections Graduate Intern 

[sforzesco]

Slavery and Roman Literary Culture, Sandra R. Joshel

[riesenfeldcenter]

Happy Solar Eclipse day! 🌑🌒🌞

Here is our copy of the 4th edition, volume 1, of Samuel Johnson's A Dictionary of the English Language (1773) and Johnson's definitions of "eclipse" and "ecliptick." This is one of our larger books, which is especially evident next to our smallest book (The Inaugural Address of John Fitzgerald Kennedy).

ECLI'PSE. n.

1. An obscuration of the luminaries of heaven; the sun is eclipsed by the intervention of the moon; the moon by the interposition of the earth. The word originally signifies departure from a place, to which Milton alludes.

2. Darkness; obscuration.

To ECLI'PSE v. a. [from the noun]

To darken a luminary.

To extinguish; to put out.

To cloud; to obscure.

To disgrace.

You might spot some words you don't know within eclipse's surrounding entries. A new one to me was "eclegma," "A form of medicine made by the incorporation of oils with syrups, and which is to be taken upon a liquorice stick."

[tumblweeds-omegaverse]

one of my favorite things to play around with, in omegaverse? changing what something "usually" means.

family = parents and biological children in a shared household?

not any more its not!

family = a group of friends who share a house together like they have for years, even after forming partnerships with others or having kids

family = a queer platonic couple, the kids they adopted (despite being able to procreate together if they wanted to), and the neighbors that are like siblings to them

family = three generations of parents, children, siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins, and friends who might as well be family, who rally around each other in good times and bad

family = two lifelong best friends who went from playing together as kids, to raising families, to growing old, while becoming the cornerstones of their neighborhood

family = one big old polycule spread across multiple households, and the assortment of kids who have called them aunties and uncles from day one

family = a happily single person, their pets, and the network of friends that they feel safe going to whenever problems are bigger than one person should carry

family = a couple, their newborns, the siblings who help out, and the grandparents who are first in line to babysit

family = a single parent, their kids, and a very robust support network

family = a group of people who care about each other but aren't compatible when it comes to sharing a home, being very supportive - just from a distance - with or without other elements

and the fun thing is, you can slot any type of person into these setups!

make the two best friends look like the default "boy meets girl" rom-com pairing but with zero sexual tension.

make the people who sound like the most stereotypical suburban family, incredibly queer visually.

want your packs to be multi-generational households by default? go for it!

want to explore belonging beyond the nuclear family or the quest to create one? sure thing!

it gets even more interesting based on the social positions of the six sexes.

(in my head: primary sex = alpha, beta, omega. secondary sex = male, female. to keep from having to list them all, its "six sexes" but in some settings there can be more or less)

for example: what if there's a society that separates alphas and omegas as a general practice? it's the task of all omegas to run the towns and villages and see to their defense; alphas, on reaching presentation, are trained to watch over the land and tend to the region as a whole. if the two groups tend to mix mostly with those they share a classification with, how do their family groups appear?

or what if the society is arranged less like our human ones, and more like specific animal groups? if your packs operate more like a bee hive, how does that change their view of family, future generations, and group membership?

basically: there are lots of types of families, even irl, so making packs unique is more fun to me than going "parents and their kids" despite that being the most accurate to actual wolf pack structures

(though, since that structure isn't super typical to how we show families in media, i do kinda want to explore an established one! just not super interested in the "couple meets and raises their first baby" part because there's already a lot of focus on that as what "happily ever after" looks like. i want to get into how the following generation finds meaning and sets goals without doing as their parents did)

[nemfrog]

Animals and plants beginning with A. Beeton's illustrated dictionary of the physical sciences. 1886.

Wellcome Collection

[iwakuraz]

this is what I look like in real life by the way

I'm from a world where speakers are on a higher plane of existence than they are here. speakers have their own consciousness over there so I'm actually an icat. sorry if this is suprising to any of you

[gendzl]

I keep finding dictionaries/thesauri at book sales and I seem to have accidentally started a collection of them. up to 7 now.

[oscconfessions]

Wish people would draw dictionary from inanimate insanity

He looks pretty cool,I like the blue and red stripe. Idk, I'm just a fan of book from anywhere.

I would draw him but believe it or not,I'm a big forgetful dumdum

.

[brujahinaskirt]

in my experience as a literary editor you have like, two kinds of historical fiction people on twitter:

thinks good historical fiction must be 100% accurate to history regardless of how incomprehensible this may make it to modern readers (this goal is impossible and undesirable btw, especially when we get into linguistic changes)

thinks good historical fiction must actively attempt to sanitize history (e.g., exclusively use modern terminology, identity concepts) in order to avoid offending others and believes that modern readers are too dumb to separate historical fidelity from active bigotry on behalf of the characters and author (I mean maybe on twitter they are)

both are wrong and annoying and completely out of touch with the genre and with good writing practices in general, but are nevertheless WAY better than the main type of historical fiction person on reddit & youtube. who, regardless of location or century or court records, only knows how to say this:

"women and gays and blacks would have been hanged :("

edited to add: historical fiction people on tumblr are like

*shares post containing blatant oversimplification / outright misinfo / giant screed with no sign of a single legitimate citation* "GOSH THIS IS SO GOOD TO KNOW!" *proceeds to 'correct' everyone around them based on a fucking tumblr post any freaking rando could have squeezed out*

[ratatatastic]

when did matthew say that he doesn’t like facing forsy in peactice?

a quote told to one of nhlsweden's correspondent during scf24 media day!

thats the original swedish quote and ive been trying to find any sort of audio source but it seems like he just told them off the cuff

[schadenfreudich]

Ah, this explains things.

But also firearm AND smoking a joint?

[itsladykit]

I will never get over how often someone's DNI seems to exist only to serve as a giant red flag.

[riesenfeldcenter]

Noah Webster's first dictionary (and the first American dictionary!), A Compendious Dictionary of the English Language, published in 1806.

"No person acquainted with the difficulties attending such a compilation, will flatter himself or the public, that any thing like perfection is within the compass of one man's abilities. Nothing like this is here promised. All that I have attempted, and all that I can believe to be executed, is a dictionary with considerable improvements; a work required by the advanced and advancing state of science and arts. The dictionaries of a living language must be revised every half century, or must necessarily be erroneous and imperfect."

Not only does Webster go from A to Z, but he includes a chronological table of events events going from Adam and Eve to 1806. If you look closely enough, you can find out when and where Henry II first wore silk stockings.

[ahaura]

my collection of language dictionaries/lexicons/glossaries (so far)

what im transcribing/reading atm