Ay Erymorocicat Dictionary or Monenw Eworisn, By Ernest, Weekley, Ma. (John Murray. £2 28. net.)
Learning and the desire and capacity for research do not always go with a zest for life. Many of our standard works are far drier than they have any reason to be. Take Webster's "Dictionary," for instance. It is beyond all doubt the best dictionary of its size and scope in existence; if one cannot have the great Oxford compilation, Webster is the next best thing. But Noah Webster and his suecessors, for all their magnificent devotion to their task, have not got much colour into their work. Tt was not always so. Cotgrave's definitions were full of salt, and Dr, Johnson deliberately made his work at once as accurate and as entertaining as he could. Modern lexicographers have feared the reproach of superficiality and have excluded personality from their work. It is a very great pleasure therefore to get a dictionary from Mr. Weekley.
Exit Dryaspust, One knows from experience that Mr. Weekley would contrive to avoid unnecessary dullness even if he were compiling a railway guide; but, that he would also get the trains right. This dictionary is not meant to be a substitute for Webster and his kind, but a complement to them. Mr. Weekley's aim is to cover our "literary and colloquial vocabulary, so far as the former is not purely archaic and the latter not purely technical or local"; he excludes most modern scientific terms, and endeavours to include current slang words, many of which have been over-looked by his predecessors, and all foreign words which are likely to occur. in reading and educated conversation. He has picked and_ chosen his ground, and frankly admits it, But another thing he admits without, Serer Tanensncom areal
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.