Dear subscribers,
Welcome to the first Daily Themes of the new academic year! Today’s post features a fun assignment on ‘Diction and Dictionaries’ that invites you to explore the effects of English words that have similar meanings and different linguistic roots (like ask, question, and interrogate). Before getting into the assignment, just a few small things:
Last year, we started out with the aim of sending these once a fortnight but I think that turned out to be a bit over-ambitious. For one thing, I didn’t always have time to put them together but it didn’t leave subscribers much time to try the exercise either. We really want this to be an interactive project so this year, posts will be more infrequent to give you time to work on the assignments and share them with us.
Soon, we’re going to be sending out another post with some updates about what we’re doing at creativecritcal.net and a call for submissions so keep an eye out for that!
If you’re new to this Substack, you can read a post that explains what it is and who we are here.
Assignment 11:Diction and Dictionaries
As usual, today’s assignment comprises a set of exercises followed by a set of examples. Normally, the examples are quite simple: a list of attributed quotations from poems, plays, novels etc. Today’s are a little more chaotic and contain – as far as I can tell – a lot of Hollander’s own notes. In the interest of keeping this post succinct, I’ve only included the essentials but if you’d like to see the whole list, you can view it over at our website: https://creativecritical.net/assignment-11-diction-and-dictionaries/
If you try any of these exercises, whether for your own enjoyment or with students, please share your results and observations with us! We really want to make this an interactive project and will share your results with subscribers (anonymously if you prefer). Some of these exercises – like numbers 2 and 5 – are far more demanding than others but don’t worry, they work as self-contained exercises as well as a series so there is no need to do all five.
Exercises:
1. Look up one of the following words (or some other word that interests you) in The Oxford English Dictionary:
Depression
Feminine
Liberal
Immorality
Silly
Using the historical evidence contained in the entries for that word, and, if you like, your own knowledge of the word's history since the publication of the OED, write a one-page essay tracing the development of the word's meanings. If you prefer, you may embed this account in a more comprehensive account of the social, literary, or technological changes that are correlated with the changes in verbal meaning.
2. Read Francis Bacon's essay, "Of Studies" (see texts following). Use the OED to make certain that you understand its language as Bacon would have intended it. Now write two paraphrases of some section of that essay (about a modern paragraph in length) into colloquial or informal modern English as follows:
(a) A paraphrase that repeatedly betrays ignorance of, or insensitivity to, the precise meanings of Bacon's language.
(b) A paraphrase that is as faithful to Bacon's precise meanings as the resources of colloquial or informal modern English will allow.
3. Select any page in your desk dictionary. Assume that this page is the only surviving vestige of the English language. Write a one-page essay setting forth the deductions that you could make about English and the people who spoke it judging from the meanings and etymologies of words on this page.
4. Compose a paragraph of twelve to fifteen sentences on any subject. Write this paragraph first using words of exclusively English or Germanic origin. Then write an alternative version of the same paragraph in which you indulge heavily in words of Latin, French, Greek, or other foreign origins. Try not to write stylistic parodies; try to make each version as graceful and effective as you can. [A valuable resource in writing this essay will be Roget's International Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases, a book giving synonyms of all the words in English.]
5. "Originally all language was metaphor," observed a Romantic thinker, and there is a tinge of regret in his tone--regret that words lose their metaphorical force and become flat and abstract. Write a brief meditation on this phenomenon of latent and nascent metaphor in human language. One good starting point might be to take any sentence that you or another writer composed and translate it back into the original etymological sense of the words. For example, if one so analyzed the first sentence in exercise 2, above, ("Read ____'s essay, 'Of Studies""), one would come up with a sentences like this: "Guess ____'s weighing 'Of Pushes"". [Here again the OED would be the best resource, but most desk dictionaries supply some etymological information about the words in them. See other sources listed under "further reading."]
Examples:
The fire spread wildly vs. The conflagration extended its devastating career.
He began his answer vs. He commenced his rejoinder.
Herbert Spencer: "Evolution is an integration of matter and concomitant dissipation of motion; during which the matter passes from an indefinite homogeneity to a definite, coherent heterogeneity; and during which the retained motion undergoes a parallel transformation."
William James: "Evolution is a change from a nohowish untalkaboutable all-alikeness to a somehowish and in general talkaboutable not-all-alikeness by continuous sticktogetherations and somethingelseifications."
Samuel Johnson: "Dryden's page is a natural field, rising into inequalities, and diversified by the varied exuberance of abundant vegetation; Pope's is a velvet lawn, shaven by the scythe and leveled by the roller."
‘Of Studies’
Studies serue for Delight, for Ornament, and for Ability. Their Chiefe Vse for Delight, is in Priuatenesse and Retiring; For Ornament, is in Discourse; And for Ability, is in the Iudgement and Disposition of Businesse. For Expert Men can Execute, and perhaps Iudge for particulars, one by one; But the generall Counsels, and the Plots, and Marshalling of Affaires, come best from those that are Learned. To spend too much Time in Studies, is Sloth; To vse them too much for Ornament, is Affectation; To make Iudgement wholly by their Rules is the Humour of a Scholler. They perfect Nature, and are perfected by Experience: For Naturall Abilities, are like Naturall Plants, that need Proyning by Study: And Studies themselves, doe giue forth Directions too much at Large, except they be bounded in by experience. Crafty Men Contemne Studies; simple Men Admire them; And Wise Men Vse them: For they teach not their owne Vse; But that is a Wisdome without them, and aboue them, won by Obseruation. Reade not to Contradict, and Confute; Nor to Beleeue and Take for granted; Nor to Finde Talke and Discourse; But to weigh and Consider. Some Bookes are to be Tasted, Others to be Swallowed, and Some Few to be Chewed and Digested: That is, some Bookes are to be read onely in Parts; Others to be read but not Curiously; And some Few to be read wholly, and with Diligence and Attention. Some Bookes also may be read by Deputy, and Extracts made of them by Others: But that would be, onely in the lesse important Arguments, and the Meaner Sort of Bookes: else distilled Bookes, are like Common distilled Waters, Flashy Things. Reading maketh a Full Man; Conference a Ready Man; And Writing an Exact Man. And therefore, If a Man Write little, he had need haue a Great memory; If he Conferre little, he had need haue a Present Wit; And if he Reade litle, he had need haue much Cunning, to seeme to know that, he doth not. Histories make Men Wise; Poets Witty; The Mathematicks Subtill; Naturall Philosophy deepe; Morall Graue; Logick and Rhetorick Able to Contend. Abeunt studia in Mores. Nay there is no Stond or Impediment in the Wit, but may be wrought out by Fit Studies: Like as Diseases of the Body, may haue Appropriate Exercises. Bowling is good for the Stone and Reines; Shooting for the Lungs and Breast; Gentle Walking for the Stomacke; Riding for the Head; And the like. So if a Mans Wit be Wandring, let him Study the Mathematicks; For in Demonstrations, if his Wit be called away neuer so little, he must begin again: If his Wit be not Apt to distinguish or find differences, let him Study the Schoole-men; For they are Cymini sectores. If he be not Apt to beat ouer Matters, and to call vp one Thing, to Proue and Illustrate another, let him Study the Lawyers Cases: So euery Defect of the Minde, may haue a Speciall Receit.