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The Gentle Art of Lexicography: as pursued and experienced by an addict

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Excerpt from Gentle Art of As Pursued and Experienced by an Addict

When Mr Al Hart of the Macmillan Company, Inc., invited me to launch upon the perilous waters of belles-lettres a small barque carrying a cargo of lexicography, I recoiled in alarm, for I could not, at a first rapid inspection, see how the frail craft could possibly survive the Scylla of a formidably specialist subject and the Charybdis of competition with such professionals as Professor J. R. Hulbert and Professor Ladislas Országh and Dr R. W. Chapman and several others. Merely to summarize and generalize what they have so pertinently and authoritatively written would be not merely a crass supererogation but an unwarrantable impertinence.

Yet the thought of writing a small book on lexicography - something rather less 'popular', rather more systematic and much more comprehensive, than the essay appearing, 1952, in From Sanskrit to Brazil - had occurred to me more than once during the period that has elapsed since Origins appeared, late in 1958; only to be dismissed as, on brief consideration, impracticable - for the above-mentioned reasons. Mr Hart, the most insidious and urbane of agents provocateurs, said, 'Well, think it over.' I and the solution at which I eventually arrived was this.

About the Publisher

Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com

Language: English

Pages: 119

Format: Hardcover

Release: August 05, 2015

The Gentle Art of Lexicography: as pursued and experienced by an addict

0/5 ( ratings)

Excerpt from Gentle Art of As Pursued and Experienced by an Addict

When Mr Al Hart of the Macmillan Company, Inc., invited me to launch upon the perilous waters of belles-lettres a small barque carrying a cargo of lexicography, I recoiled in alarm, for I could not, at a first rapid inspection, see how the frail craft could possibly survive the Scylla of a formidably specialist subject and the Charybdis of competition with such professionals as Professor J. R. Hulbert and Professor Ladislas Országh and Dr R. W. Chapman and several others. Merely to summarize and generalize what they have so pertinently and authoritatively written would be not merely a crass supererogation but an unwarrantable impertinence.

Yet the thought of writing a small book on lexicography - something rather less 'popular', rather more systematic and much more comprehensive, than the essay appearing, 1952, in From Sanskrit to Brazil - had occurred to me more than once during the period that has elapsed since Origins appeared, late in 1958; only to be dismissed as, on brief consideration, impracticable - for the above-mentioned reasons. Mr Hart, the most insidious and urbane of agents provocateurs, said, 'Well, think it over.' I and the solution at which I eventually arrived was this.

About the Publisher

Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com

Language: English

Pages: 119

Format: Hardcover

Release: August 05, 2015

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