Lexicographer Quotes

On this page you will find all the quotes on the topic "Lexicographer". There are currently 26 quotes in our collection about Lexicographer. Discover the TOP 10 sayings about Lexicographer!
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  • Every other author may aspire to praise; the lexicographer can only hope to escape reproach.

    A Dictionary of the English Language preface (1755)
  • LEXICOGRAPHER, n. A pestilent fellow who, under the pretense of recording some particular stage in the development of a language, does what he can to arrest its growth, stiffen its flexibility and mechanize its methods.

    Ambrose Bierce (2013). “The Devil's Dictionary: Complete & Unabridged”, p.147, Courier Corporation
  • The Hebrew language will go from the synagogue to the house of study, and from the house of study to the school, and from the school it will come into the home and... become a living language

    Home   School   House  
  • The makers of dictionaries are dependent upon specialists for their definitions. A specialist's definition may be true or it may be erroneous. But its truth cannot be increased or its error diminished by its acceptance by the lexicographer. Each definition must stand on its own merits.

    Benjamin Ricketson Tucker (1972). “Instead of a Book”
  • Patriotism, n. Combustible rubbish ready to the torch of any one ambitious to illuminate his name. In Dr. Johnson's famous dictionary patriotism is defined as the last resort of a scoundrel. With all due respect to an enlightened but inferior lexicographer I beg to submit it is the first.

    Ambrose Bierce (2016). “The Devil's Dictionary: The Devil World”, p.160, 谷月社
  • MAGIC, n. An art of converting superstition into coin. There are other arts serving the same high purpose, but the discreet lexicographer does not name them.

    Art   Names   Magic  
    Ambrose Bierce (2001). “The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary”, p.159, University of Georgia Press
  • ABNORMAL, adj. Not conforming to standard. In matters of thought and conduct, to be independent is to be abnormal, to be abnormal is to be detested. Wherefore the lexicographer adviseth a striving toward the straiter [sic] resemblance of the Average Man than he hath to himself. Whoso attaineth thereto shall have peace, the prospect of death and the hope of Hell.

    Ambrose Bierce (2016). “The Devil's Dictionary: The Devil World”, p.3, 谷月社
  • Dictionaries are like watches, the worst is better than none and the best cannot be expected to go quite true.

    Letter to Francesco Sastres, 21 Aug. 1784
  • If we wish that the name Israel be not extinguished, then we are in duty bound to create something which may serve as a center for our entire people, like the heart in an organism, from which the blood will stream into all the arteries of the national body and fill it with life.

    Life   Heart   Israel  
  • Being in a ship is being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned.

    Travel   Jail   Sailing  
    Quoted in James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson (1791) (entry for 16 Mar. 1759)
  • A lexicographer, a writer of dictionaries, a harmless drudge.

    A Dictionary of the English Language (1755)
  • OBSOLETE, adj. No longer used by the timid. Said chiefly of words. A word which some lexicographer has marked obsolete is ever thereafter an object of dread and loathing to the fool writer . . .

    Ambrose Bierce (2016). “The Devil's Dictionary: The Devil World”, p.152, 谷月社
  • KISS, n. A word invented by the poets as a rhyme for "bliss." It is supposed to signify, in a general way, some kind of rite or ceremony appertaining to a good understanding; but the manner of its performance is unknown to this lexicographer.

    Ambrose Bierce (2016). “The Devil's Dictionary: The Devil World”, p.120, 谷月社
  • Exact science and its practical movements are no checks on the greatest poet, but always his encouragement and support ... The sailor and traveller, the anatomist, chemist, astronomer, geologist, phrenologist, spiritualist, mathematician, historian and lexicographer are not poets, but they are the lawgivers of poets and their construction underlies the structure of every perfect poem.

    Walt Whitman (1868). “Poems”, p.46
  • Funeralese has had its ups and downs. The word 'morticians,' first used in Embalmers Monthly for February, 1895, was barred by the Chicago Tribune in 1932, 'not for lack of sympathy with the ambition of undertakers to be well regarded, but because of it. If they haven't the sense to save themselves from their own lexicographers, we shall not be guilty of abetting them in their folly.

    JESSICA MITFORD (1963). “THE AMERICAN WAY OF DEATH”
  • It matters not how a man dies, but how he lives. The act of dying is not of importance, it lasts so short a time.

    Death   Time   Men  
    Quoted in James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson (1791) (entry for 26 Oct. 1769)
  • Curiosity is one of the most permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous intellect.

    The Rambler, No. 103, March 12, 1751.
  • Education is useless without the Bible. The Bible was America's basic text book in all fields. God's Word, contained in the Bible, has furnished all necessary rules to direct our conduct.

    Bible   God   Education  
  • Lexicographer: a writer of dictionaries, a harmless drudge, that busies himself in tracing the original, and detailing the signification of words.

    Samuel Johnson, John Walker (1835). “Johnson's English Dictionary”, p.559
  • By the time the traditionally male lexicographers become interested in looking at fashion words, their origins are lost in the mists of time.

    "Erin McKean comes to terms with fashion" by Beth Hughes, www.sfgate.com. August 6, 2012.
  • You can define a net two ways, depending on your point of view. Normally you would say it is a meshed instrument designed to catch fish. But you could, with no great injury to logic, reverse the image and define the net as a jocular lexicographer once did: he called it a collection of holes tied together with string.

    Views   Two   Together  
    Julian Barnes (1985). “Flaubert's parrot”, Alfred a Knopf Inc
  • I am not so lost in lexicography as to forget that words are the daughters of earth, and that things are the sons of heaven.

    Daughter   Art   Son  
    A Dictionary of the English Language preface (1755)
  • Classical quotation is the parole of literary men all over the world.

    Book   Beer   Men  
    Quoted in James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson (1791) (entry for 8 May 1781)
  • Lexicographers are language reporters.

  • Almost all absurdity of conduct arises from the imitation of those who we cannot resemble.

    The Rambler, No. 135, July 02, 1751.
  • The bold and discerning writer who, recognizing the truth that language must grow by innovation if it grow at all, makes new words and uses the old in an unfamiliar sense has no following and is tartly reminded that 'it isn't in the dictionary' - although down to the time of the first lexicographer no author ever had used a word that was in the dictionary.

    Ambrose Bierce (2001). “The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary”, p.149, University of Georgia Press
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