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
with in both dictionaries, and where both the word and the sense have survived relatively unchanged. From the first few entries in the sample of headwords from Cawdrey we find: abdicate v.i. renounce a throne or right etc. abdication n. aggravate v.t. make worse; (colloq .) annoy, aggravation n. agile a. nimble, quick-moving, agilely adv., agility n. alacrity n eager readiness. apology n. statement of regret for having done wrong or hurt; explanation of one's beliefs; poor specimen. celebrate v.t./i. mark or honour with festivities; engage in festivities; officiate at (a religious ceremony), celebration n circumspect a. cautious and watchful, wary, circumspection n. delectation n. enjoyment diminution n. decrease There is certainly a little more syntactic information, but the overall amount of detail given and the concept of what constitutes the definition of meaning is almost identical. The general dictionary model set up by Cawdrey and his predecessors, and indeed their complete entries, continued to be used well into the 17th century: Bullokar's The English Expositor (1616), Cockeram's The English Dictionarie (1623), Blount's Glossographia (1656), Phillips' The New World of English Words (1658) and Coles' An English Dictionary (1676) all deal with 'hard' or 'difficult' words. There does seem to be a trend towards greater verbosity in the definitions, perhaps in the pursuit of greater precision or a greater usefulness. Starnes & Noyes (1991, p. 23) give a comparison of Cawdrey and Bullokar which shows a general tendency to add words to the definitions, often making them less terse and cryptic in the process. As an example, consider Bullokar's definition of 'aggravate' in comparison to Cawdrey's given above: To make any thing in words more grievous, heavier or worse than it is. The extra elements in this definition restrict the operation of the word to 'anything in words' and add the concept 'to make worse'. This may not in practice be any more accurate, precise or helpful than Cawdrey's original: what is important is that this tendency to give 17
