The record-union., 1899-04-14
MAKING A DICTIONARY.
Thousands of Books Read-Mill-
ions of Quotations Made.

The scheme is simplicity itself. I Iables
and desks, and along the walls row
upon row of pigeon holes, more than a
thousand of them, full of slips. Every
one of these slips has passed or Will
pass through the hands of five helpers,
and four assistants at the tables are
constantly at work sorting and classi-
flying them. They contain the quota
tions; approximately a million of them
go to the ton-there are about six tons
of them. 1t would take you thirty years
to lock through them at the rate of one
a minute. That only a million will
be used in the dictionary gives one the
impression that things are not so bad
after all Yet, as matter of fact, the
saving of labor would be immense if
the whole of the six tons could be
printed AS it is they have all to be
weighed in the balance. Then. when
the best have been selected, they must
be made of a convenient length, for the
dictionary is limited to eight times the
size of Webster On slopes against the
wall and on shelves are ranged the
works of reference; dictionaries, an
cient and modern. in many languages.
The slips which line the scriptorium
came from ali parts of the world--from
France and from Florida, from Algeria
and Amsterdam, from Upper Egypt,
Stockholm, Rome, Florence and Japan.
Among the early readers there are
many distinguished names: Rosetti,
Hazlitt, Perowne, Lubbock, Littledale,
Lightfoot, Lushington, Craik and Dow
den- More than 100000 books have
been read and extracts made. 1t took
two assistants three years, working
eight hours a day, to sort the material
transferred to DR.. Murray by the Philo-
logical Society. He sent out circulars
to the registered contributors, 800 of
them-450 came back through the dead
letter officei Twenty-six sub-editors
had been originally appointed, one for
each letter of the alphabet. Nearly one
half of these We're dead. From eXecu-
tors and survivors, however, quotations
came tumbling in by the ton, unearth-
ed from lumber rooms, from cellars,
from garrets and from cupboards. They
came in cases, in trunks, in hampers,
in baskets They were barrels of nouns
and bundles of verbs, sheaves of con-
functions and parcels of adjectives. In
every conceivable form of package
even an old baSsinet full, containing,
too, mouse and her family, reared on
parts of speech. But the slips of Pa
could not be found, nor the sub editor
responsible for Them With infinite diff
ficuity he was traced from place TO
place till it was ascertained that he had
last resided in County Cavan. There
he had died, and there, in loft over
shed, the missing words were found.
1t must be understood that tlfese sub
editors and readers have given, and still
give, their services without fee or re-
ward. The correspondence entailed in
keeping them at work was in itself a
huge matter. From thirty forty letters
a day had to be written. Altogether
not fewer than 1000 people have had a
finger in the pie
The conditions have happily changed
since then The chief work at present
consists in sorting and classifying the
material New books and new editions,
it is true, come out now and again,
which must be read. But a trained
band of some 100 men and women un-
dertake all that is required. The scope
of the New English Dictionary is wider
than that of any. of its predecessors. 1t
includes an words, not only those be-
longing to modern English, but those
which are archaic and obsolete. 1t is
enriched with quotations from the ear