Spellings are made by people. Dictionaries eventually reflect popular choices. And the Internet is allowing more people to influence spelling than ever before.
Spellings are made by people. Dictionaries - eventually - reflect popular choices.
I'm very sensitive to the English language. I studied the dictionary obsessively when I was a kid and collect old dictionaries. Words, I think, are very powerful and they convey an intention.
At painful times, when composition is impossible and reading is not enough, grammars and dictionaries are excellent for distraction.
One of my favorite ways to find fictional inspiration, by the way, is to browse historical timelines. I also like world atlases - any country with a squiggly coastline seems to inspire me, as do visual dictionaries, those reclusive creatures of the reference shelf.
Greek was very much a live language, and a language still unconscious of grammar, not, like ours, dominated by definitions and trained upon dictionaries.
For correct writing, the cultivation of patience and mental accuracy is essential. Throughout the young author's period of apprenticeship, he must keep reliable dictionaries and textbooks at his elbow; eschewing as far as possible that hasty extemporaneous manner of writing which is the privilege of more advanced students.
I spoke Spanish when I was three, and then Maltese. I love dictionaries. I like foreigners. My dad moved every year before I was 14, and I learnt to like abroad. I'm not scared of change.
Dictionaries are always fun, but not always reassuring.
My job involves searching for 'lost' quotations - that is, trying to find out who came up with a quotable saying that lingers in someone's mind and which they wish to use for their own purpose and which they cannot find in conventional dictionaries of quotation.
