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Jack Lynch

The Lexicographer's Dilemma: The Evolution of 'Proper' English, from Shakespeare to South Park Hardcover – November 3, 2009

by Jack Lynch (Author)

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In its long history, the English language has had many lawmakers--those who have tried to regulate or otherwise organize the way we speak. The Lexicographer's Dilemma offers the first narrative history of these endeavors and shows clearly that what we now regard as the only "correct" way to speak emerged out of specific historical and social conditions over the course of centuries. As historian Jack Lynch has discovered, every rule has a human history and the characters peopling his narrative are as interesting for their obsession as for their erudition: the sharp-tongued satirist Jonathan Swift, who called for a government-sponsored academy to issue rulings on the language; the polymath Samuel Johnson, who put dictionaries on a new footing; the eccentric Hebraist Robert Lowth, the first modern to understand the workings of biblical poetry; the crackpot linguist John Horne Tooke, whose bizarre theories continue to baffle scholars; the chemist and theologian Joseph Priestly, whose political radicalism prompted violent riots; the ever-crotchety Noah Webster, who worked to Americanize the English language; the long-bearded lexicographer James A. H. Murray, who devoted his life to a survey of the entire language in the Oxford English Dictionary; and the playwright George Bernard Shaw, who worked without success to make English spelling rational.

Grammatical "rules" or "laws" are not like the law of gravity, or even laws against murder and theft--they're more like rules of etiquette, made by fallible people and subject to change. Witty, smart, full of passion for the world's language, The Lexicograher's Dilemma will entertain and educate in equal measure.

Print length

336 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Walker Books
Publication date

November 3, 2009
Dimensions

5.78 x 1.33 x 8.55 inches
ISBN-10

0802717004
ISBN-13

978-0802717009
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Editorial Reviews

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“Lynch writes in funny and engaging prose about the human side of language history and the people who have helped make English so darn complex. From Jonathan Swift's government-sponsored language academy to George Carlin's seven censorious words, Lynch's English has been subjected not only to grammatical rules but to their cultural foundations. Lynch's highly readable book will appeal to all users of the English language, from word buffs to scholars alike.” ―Library Journal

“Lynch recognizes that grace, clarity, and precision of expression are paramount. His many well-chosen and entertaining examples support his conclusion that prescriptions and pedantry will always give way to change, and that we should stop fretting, relax, and embrace it.” ―Boston Globe

About the Author

Jack Lynch is a professor of English at Rutgers University and a Johnson scholar, having studied the great lexicographer for nearly a decade. In addition to his books on Johnson and on Elizabethan England, he has written journal articles and scholarly reviews, and hosts a Web site devoted to these topics at http://andromeda. rutgers.edu/~jlynch/18th/. He is the author of Becoming Shakespeare and Samuel Johnson's Insults and the editor of Samuel Johnson's Dictionary. He lives in Lawrenceville, NJ.

From The Washington Post

From The Washington Post's Book World/washingtonpost.com Reviewed by by Carolyn See This delightful look at efforts through the centuries to define and control the English language turns out to be a history of human exasperation, frustration and free-floating angst. People tend to go nuts around the English language. Of course, most of us are nuts anyway, but the language is always there, in the ether, or staring at us from a page, and if we're feeling particularly cranky, it never fails to provide a ready excuse for us to fly off the handle. I get afflicted with that crankiness when a television anchor describes a Chihuahua rescued from drowning as "very unique," or a woman I scarcely know pronounces "forte" as "fortay," or when a close relative of mine, when she descended (with enthusiasm!) into the life of the underworld, began to say, "He don't." I wanted to tell her, "Commit any crime you like. Just don't murder the language while you're at it!" Many of us are irritable most of the time (unless we're in love or just bought a motorcycle), and our language continually offers up imperfections and anomalies for us to be irritable about. In the words of a waiter who once brought me a menu in a way-too-authentic Chinese restaurant, there's always "something in there you're not going to like!" Jack Lynch, who also has written on Shakespeare and edited Samuel Johnson's Dictionary, gives us not a history of the English language but a history of those who have tried to make sense of it. He divides them into "prescriptive" and "descriptive" linguists: The former try with all their might to purge the language of undesirable words and constructions; the latter, acting on the theory that the language is untamable, simply try to describe its current use. (That, too, seems futile often enough -- like describing a tidal wave as it booms by.) After an amusing and very interesting introduction, Lynch begins with John Dryden. (Don't worry: Lynch dutifully goes back later to 1066, the Norman Conquest and the "marriage" of Anglo-Saxon and French.) But Dryden -- famous, esteemed by all (or most, anyway) -- was one of the first English writers to revisit his work and revise it in accordance with certain rules of Latin grammar. One of the reasons this book is so much fun is that you get to see how relatively new and recent and lively modern English is. At the end of the 17th century, Latin grammarians were just becoming influential in English society. The English language itself didn't have a formal grammar, but Latin did, and it seemed sensible to think that the rules of this revered dead language might easily be applied to bumptious, wildly growing, very-much-alive English. Dryden set about lopping prepositions off the ends of his sentences (they're not called prepositions for nothing!) and spent time sticking his split infinitives back together. The idea of "good" English as opposed to "bad" was coming into play. This, Lynch says, had to do with the rise of the middle class -- a set of interlopers who had had the luck and nerve to earn some money, and thus aspired to fake their way into the outer realms of the ruling elite. One of the necessary tools for this was knowledge of how the language was spoken and written by those who lived at the top. For those who have taken their share of English classes, all this material might seem familiar, but that doesn't diminish the pleasure of seeing Jonathan Swift, in the 18th century, being driven ape-crazy by the use of contractions like "wouldn't" and trendy abbreviations like "mob" for the Latin "mobile vulgus" (fickle crowd). "Mob" had the effect of "very unique" on Swift, and years after he first wrote a screed on the topic, he still flung himself into a rage when a woman he knew used the word in conversation: "Why do you say that?" he railed, "never let me hear you say that word again." When the woman asked what she should say instead, he answered, "The rabble, to be sure." People are crazy, that's the long and the short of it, and even with one of the biggest, most imaginative and attractive languages on the planet, they will discover ways to fiddle with it. After Samuel Johnson's Dictionary, which, although certainly opinionated, was largely descriptive, there arose those pesky, prescriptive Latin grammarians who did everything they could to hammer English into a Latin mold. Then, when the American Revolution came along, a patriot named Noah Webster compiled a uniquely American dictionary, taking the opportunity to thumb his nose at Johnson in the process. Then came the long decades in which a group of dedicated scholars labored to put together the Oxford English Dictionary. The first installment appeared in 1884, the last in 1928. A lot of very learned people got sick and died during the execution of this valiant project, and as soon as it was finished -- sooner, even -- it required extensive revision. And more revision. And then came the hordes of people with nothing better to do with their lives than to carp about the differences between "who" and "whom" and a mountain of split infinitives, because the language, besides providing a convenient subject to be enraged at, also offered a refuge for otherwise unemployable cranks. The unseemly squabbling never lets up, actually. The author revisits the tempest in a teapot that recently surrounded the teaching of ebonics in the Oakland, Calif., school system. (The critics went out of their way to be both racist and smug.) And before that, there was the scorn heaped upon the editor of Webster's Third New International Dictionary, a man who thought it helpful to include words that people were using by the dawn of the '60s, like "hipster" and "drip-dry." Scholars went berserk, of course. And that's what this book is about: humans going berserk. In the end, this language mania is probably preferable to sitting on the couch watching television, enduring an angst-attack over how Kate Hudson lets her jaw go slack when she smiles. That's truly crazy, which is why we're fortunate to have a language over which to pitch our fits. bookworld@washpost.com
Copyright 2009, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Walker Books; First Edition (November 3, 2009)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 336 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0802717004
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0802717009
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.78 x 1.33 x 8.55 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #2,312,815 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #965 in Etymology (Books)
- #2,753 in Grammar Reference (Books)
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Jack Lynch

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Jack Lynch is Associate Professor of English at Rutgers University in Newark, New Jersey. He's the author of a series of books and articles -- some for scholarly audiences, some for popular audiences -- on eighteenth-century culture, Samuel Johnson, William Shakespeare, the history of the English language, English grammar and style, reference books, and forgery, fakery, and fraud.

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Frank Lynch

A magical performance on the development of the "Rules"

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on February 20, 2010

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First, the disclaimer. Jack Lynch and I are not related, but we know each other through a common interest in Samuel Johnson (a web search on Johnson will quickly get you to both our sites). I have been in the acknowledgments in at least one of his books, and if I ever get my Johnson anthology published he will be in mine.

Now, the book review. The dilemma in the title refers to the lexicographer's choice between being prescriptive (providing rules and taking a position of authority) and being descriptive (describing how the language is used, and not taking a position on what you should do). It's a false choice, and Lynch pretty much acknowledges that early on; not only does he say that the title choice was his publishers, but he provides a number of examples where lexicographers have chosen something in between.

In a largely chronological exploration of the development of dictionaries and language styles, Lynch explores the ways lexicographers have hewed to either a prescriptive or descriptive extreme or chosen something in between. And although this sounds like a book you might need to blow the dust off, that's not true at all: the book is closer to a romp. A romp, you say? Yes, I do, because with each discussion of Horace, Dryden, Johnson, Webster, and so on, Lynch lays out practical implications of their actions, drawing not just on a specific lexicographer's or grammarian's opus, but examples in our own language.

And the so called 'rules'? They ain't necessarily so: it's not like they came to Moses on a tablet; they were the inventions of studied men, and while they had authority at their backs, their intentions can be characterized as misguided. For example, the split infinitive ("to swiftly run" vs. "to run swiftly"). Those who said we shouldn't split our infinitives were trying to make English conform to Latin or Greek, where the infinitive form is a single word (a conjugated, one word verb) which cannot be split. And of course, the fact that you can't do it in Latin doesn't mean you can't do it in English.

As Lynch brings out issues such as these, and the history not just of dictionaries and dictionary *publishing* (yes, the marketing department's actions have an impact, too), Lynch sweetens the pot with all sorts of beguiling discussions, and doesn't hesitate to delve into current colloquialisms to entertain. At one point he even hesitates before his punch line to interject - - wait for it - - "wait for it."

It's a thorough book, bringing in even George Carlin, and how his list of seven words solidified censors' concepts of what to allow... That was a surprise.

And as for his chapter on Samuel Johnson - - probably the one chapter where I know the subject well enough to immediately see the choices he made in what and what not to write about - - he has left out a considerable amount of arcane information in order to keep the story moving. The story moves in all the chapters, but I presume he cast a sharp eye on omitting similar arcana there.

In short, if you're into words and ever wondered about our language and why some of our "rules" have so many exceptions, this is a very informative, very entertaining book. I strongly recommend it.

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Amazon Customer

An interesting & entertaining account of the people & events that shaped the lexicographic tools of the English language

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on November 13, 2010

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This book gives an interesting and entertaining account of the major people and events that shaped the lexicographic tools of the English language - dictionaries, thesauruses and grammars. It says little about pronunciation, which is quite understandable as the spoken language is worth a book in itself.

Much of the book deals with struggles between descriptivists who just want to describe the language, and prescriptivists who want to lay down the correct use of English. This essentially class struggle has been going on for centuries.

The book sides with the descriptivists, with the proviso that while there is no "correct" English, there are certainly "appropriate" Englishes depending on the context. One would not expect the President of the US to give his inauguration address in Ebonics, for example.

The chapter "Expletive Deleted" is particularly entertaining, with some very funny stories. Unfortunately I dare not risk giving examples for fear that Amazon censoring algorithms will reject this review completely.

This chapter deals with the battle among dictionary publishers and the public over how (or if) to treat very "naughty words" in dictionaries. All of the four-letter words appear in this chapter, together with the rather silly euphemisms employed to disguise the actual words. Why write f**k instead of - well, you get the picture!

But even the "naughty words" change over time and it is difficult for English speakers today to understand the outrage that greeted the use of "bloody" in Shaw's play Pygmalion. Similarly, racist words have become a lightning rod for language thought police. I would have liked the author to discuss this a bit more, especially silly attempts to clean up children's books by euphemising racist terms.

The book covers all the major lexicographical figures, such as Johnson, Roget, Webster and the 18th century grammarians, as well as the major milestones in written English - Johnson's dictionary, Websters dictionary Roget's Thesaurus and the Oxford English Dictionary.

However, it is a pity he omitted any mention of William Chester Minor, a surgeon who ultimately contributed a very large number of words to the Oxford English Dictionary. After serving as a surgeon in the US Civil War, he was eventually confined to Broadmoor insane asylum suffering from paranoid schizophrenia, from where he made his contributions to the OED and also cut off his own penis. See [...] for more details, or read "The surgeon of Crowthorne", by Simon Winchester, for his biography.

I liked the book and I think it is worth the money.

5 people found this helpful

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mathete5

a good read to challenge the prescriptivist…

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on November 21, 2022

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…among whose ranks I remain, but this book brought me to a better understanding of the linguists who prefer to be called descriptivists.

If you have a collection of books on grammar and proper word usage—as I do—make sure you include this one as well

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Sergio

Word mavens look here...

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on February 25, 2011

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A fun read for any word maven, or anyone interested in a brief dip in to the origins and crooked paths of English language usage. Lynch keeps it light and entertaining, while providing lots of historical perspective. My only complaint is that he tends to repeat himself a bit, restating in the early chapters observations made in the introduction, and in the later chapters observations made in the earlier chapters. Normally no big deal, but sometimes written as if he (or the reader, at least) has forgotten what had already been said. No big deal though. A highly recommended read. Follow this up with Robert Burchfield's "The English Language".

2 people found this helpful

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Chris van Hasselt

Unfortunately riddled with errors

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on May 2, 2011

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I'm reading this book now on my Kindle, and enjoying it a great deal. It is an interesting read, but unfortunately every few "pages" of the Kindle edition has an error. On some pages, I've found single words split by an unnecssary space, like at location 1183, where "Henry Cocker am" is written instead of "Henry Cockeram". In other places, I've found words ran together, without the necessary spacing, such as "reputatationas", at location 1337. These are but two examples; I've ran across dozens as I've been reading. It is a shame a book about words and grammar is so polluted with typographical goofs.

I'm not sure these errors are carried over from the print edition, but I hope for the authors sake they are not.

6 people found this helpful

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Rebecca J

Love everything about it

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on February 22, 2014

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This book is truly brilliant. I am about to start work with a dictionary publishers, and this has really given me a fantastic insight into how dictionaries have developed over time. Lynch's style is informative without sacrificing entertainment. I have loved every chapter of this book and would highly recommend it to anyone who is interested in the history of English dictionaries, or who concerns themselves with what is 'proper'. Lynch offers a very balanced overview of the debate between prescriptivism and descriptivism

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