Az Eszterházy Károly Tanárképző Főiskola Tudományos Közleményei. 1996. Vol. 1. Eger Journal of English Studies.(Acta Academiae Paedagogicae Agriensis : Nova series ; Tom. 24)

Geoff Barnbrook: From description to prescription and back again

the glosses, it deals exclusively with the words which are likely to be difficult to understand. 3.1 Hard Word Dictionaries The title page of the first edition of Cawdrey's book echoes Coote's introductory note: A table alphabetical!, conteyning and teaching the true writing and understanding of hard usuall English wordes, borrowed from the Hebrew, Greeke, Latine, or French, &c. With the interpretation thereof by plaine English words, gathered for the benefit & helpe of Ladies, Gentlewomen, or any other unskilfull persons. Whereby they may the more easilie and better understand many hard English wordes, which they shall heare or read in Scriptures, Sermons, or elswhere, and also be made able to use the same aptly themselves. Legere, et non intelligere, neglegere est. As good not to read, as not to understand This is a very explicit description of the purposes and the method of the work. It is interesting to note that it is aimed at a very specific market, the word 'unskilfull' presumably describing their lack of knowledge of classical languages, although in practice it seems likely that its full readership would extend beyond the exclusively female examples given. It is also intended both for interpretation and production. In the traditions of the time, much of its contents were, of course, taken from existing works. Starnes and Noyes (1991, p. 13) draw attention to his extensive use of Coote (1596) both for general inspiration and for substantial portions of the word-list, definitions and surrounding text. They also stress the information that he incorporated from elsewhere, especially Thomas' Latin-English Dictionary of 1588. The tradition of near-plagiarism as a means of creating new dictionaries is established at the outset. The defining method adopted by Cawdrey is stated on the title page as using 'plaine English words'. In the examples given below similar conventions are used to those in the extracts from Coote (1596) given in section 3 above: the black letter printing is shown in bold type, (g) after a word means that it is derived from Greek, § before it means that it is from French, and (k) means 'a kind of. Cawdrey's spelling has been preserved, but no attempt has been 13