The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1904-09-24
TRAITS IN A DICTIONARY.
Literary Taste of the Owner Can BE
Told by Wearing of the
Pages.

"show me mans dictionary and I
will tell you the bent of his mind"
said the experienced librarian, accord
ing to the Chicago Tribune 'To in
sure the success of the test two condi-
tons are necessary. The dictionary
must be the exclusive property of the
man up for classification and it must
have seen months of service, other
wise his predictions run the risk of
getting mixed up with somebody else's
or of appearing only half developed.
Take the letter A for instance A
is useful letter, yet in few diction-
aries, relatively speaking, do the pages
in which it figures as an initial set
torn to tatters. In cases where they
are more worn than any other division
l can swear to it, nine times out of
ten, that the fellow who owns the book
is crank on matters historical.
When l come across a book in
which the BIS have seen the hardest
service l know at once that I have got
mold OF another whose hobby is his
tory, but of different kind. He has
laundering after birds, animals and
insects. M and N also are the happy
hunting grounds of the fellow whose
mind turns to natural history, still
there is no danger of confusion in my
deductions. If each of the three letters
were soiled separately they might lead
me astray, but the combination is a
sure guide to the taste of the reader.
&c is the favorite letter Of more
than one class of dictionary fiends.
| Scientific investigators such as chem
lists and botanists. have occasion to
! refer to words beginning with G more
frequently than to those beginning
with any other letter. Doctors, too,
find that G plays an important part in
their vocabulary. There, again, the
system of combinations comes in
handy.
| People who read medical books,
whether professional men or not, ap.
, parentiy meet more words to stump
them in the RS and rs than anywhere
/ else or these two. r presents most
/ difficulties, and it is not strange to
hnd the dictionary belonging to the
man who is concerned about his own
. and other peoples physical organiza
ton and the care thereof worn to
, strings in r and pretty shabby in T
and G, while the rest of the book is in
comparatively good condition.
Readers with a religious trend Of
thought find their photographed Wa
terloo pretty strictly confined to the
letter T. When its pages are excess
sively worn in comparison with the
rest of the alphabet it is a sure sign
that the owner of the dictionary knows
! more about church history than he
could tell in month.
"Words beginning with S are hard
nuts for engineers to crack. Students
in geographical subjects also find many
] stunning terms under that letter. How
ever, is also likely to give them con.
siderable trouble, SO by noting the rela.
tive usage of the two sections it is
possible to distinguish the engineering
from the geographical enthusiast.
/ Mathematical and musical readers
of the dictionary have common bond
of sympathy in the letter P, which
introduces most of their tough propo.
sitions.
/ Lawyers have occasion to look up
words in M most frequently. Also they
seem to be about the only class of read.
ers that have much use of j."