Az Eszterházy Károly Tanárképző Főiskola Tudományos Közleményei. 1994. [Vol. 2.] Eger Journal of American Studies. (Acta Academiae Paedagogicae Agriensis : Nova series ; Tom. 22)

BOOK REVIEWS - Miklós Kontra: Vadon, Lehel: Országh IJszló. Eger: Eszterházy Károly Tanárképző Főiskola Nyomdája, 1994. 93 pp

MIKLÓS KONTRA VADON, LEHEL: ORSZÁGH LÁSZLÓ Eger: Eszterházy Károly Tanárképző Főiskola Nyomdája, 1994. 93 pp. László Országh died ten years ago, in 1984, in his 77th year. He was editor-in-chief of the 7-volume Explanatory Dictionary of Hungarian (A Magyar Nyelv Értelmező Szótára, 1959—1962), which laid the foundations for all current monolingual and bilingual dictionaries. He edited the best English

—Hungarian and Hungarian

—English dictionaries available. He was a high school English teacher in Budapest (1932—1943), Professor of English Language and literature at the University of Debrecen (1947— 1950 and 1957—1968), the founder of American Studies in Hungary, a dedicated scholar of cultural history, and, most of all, an inspiration to his students, who were later to become leading lights in English and American Studies in Hungary. Országh was a living legend. His former colleagues in the linguistics Institute of the Hungarian Academy (where the Explanatory Dictionary was made) and his students across the country still relate memorable stories about him. When compiling the list of entry-words for Hungarian dictionaries, bolond 'fool' and bolsevik 'Bolshevik' turned out to be unhappy but unavoidable neighbors. In keeping with post-WW II communist vigilance and paranoia, lexicographers were "urged" to insert a word between these two as bolond bolsevik would be treasonous if someone were to read the dictionary vertically, rather than in the more usual horizontal 181