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

A-broach, as a vessel a-broach To sit abrood upon eggs

, as a bird does To accustom, himself to a thing A-cross, as arms folded a-cross An Adamant -stone Addle, as, an addle egg These entries 'use' the words, dealing with them as 'activities'. They actually look remarkably like ancestors of the Cobuild explanatory style, especially in their use of a different typeface to highlight the headword within surrounding text, and-their insertion of it into something like normal English phrases. Most of the examples of definitions given in Starnes & Noyes (1991, p. 74) from the revised 1713 edition of J.K.'s New English Dictionary are more genuinely definitions, rather than slightly random examples of usage, and the comparison shown there between the earlier and the later edition entries indicates that this is a conscious change of policy. These changes bring them even closer to the Cobuild style: A Gad

, a measure of 9 or 10 feet, a small bar of steel. The Gaffle or Steel of a cross-bow. A Gag, a stopple to hinder one from crying out. A Gage, a rod to measure casks with. To Gage or Gauge, to measure with a gage. To Gaggle, to cry like a goose. A Gallop, the swiftest pace of a horse. Only the lack of a connective 'is' or 'means' prevents most of these definitions from reading almost exactly like the simplest forms of Cobuild explanations, for example: A gag is a stopple to hinder one from crying out. To gaggle means to cry like a goose. Slightly more rearrangement of the definition of 'gaffle' would produce: The gaffle of a cross-bow is its steel. While this exercise may seem a little contrived, it seems important to point out that the principles used in this very early inclusive dictionary may have more in common with those applied in the 19