Реферат: How to use dictionary

Dictionaries perform a useful service by distinguishing between such terms as “anecdote”, “narrative”, “tale”, “story”.

Of course, the larger a dictionary is, the more information one can obtain from it. Here is the entry “anecdote” as it appears in the current large unabridged Webster’s New International dictionary, Second edition.

an’ec-dote (an’ek-dot; an’ik-), n

[Fr. Fr. Ir. Anekdotos not published, fr. An- not + ekdotos given out, fr. Ekdidonai to gove out, to publish, fr ek- out+didonai to give. See DATE point of time]

1) pl. Literally, unpublished items; narratives of secret or private details of history;-often in book titles Now rare.

2) A narrative, sually brief, of a separable incident or event of curious interst, told without nealice and usually with intent to amuse or please,often biographical and vharacteristic of some notable person,esp. of his likable faibles. (Some modern anecdotes over, he noded in his elbow chair. Prior)

Syn. –see story.

An’ec-dote v. I. To tell anecdotes-v. t.

To use as a subject for anecdotes. Both rare.

Notice that the etymology here ends with a reference to the entry DATE, meaning a point of time. An inspection of the etymology “given of that entry reveals that “anecdote” belongs to a group of words that are related because they all trace their ancestry, in whole or in part, back to the same IE root that os seen in the Greek verb didonai, meaning to give. Here is the lst of words Webster cities as being related in the manner indicated: anecdote, condone, dado, damu, dative, datum, die, n..., donate, dose, dower, edit, pardon, render, sacerdotal.

One of the unique and highly valuable features of the unabridged Merriam-Webster is that it often groups words basically related, because they, or parts of them, go back to a common ancestor word. No othe english dictionary gives so much of this kind of information. Some of the commonest words in the language have a surpisingly large number of relatives.

In the dictionary Century the entry of the word anecdote is as follows:

Anecdote(an’ek-dot), n[<F. Anecdote,

First in pl. Anecdotes, M. L. Anecdota, <Gr. , pl., things unpublished, applied by Procopius to his memoirs of Justinian, which consisted chiefly of gossip about the private life of the court;prop. Neut. pl. of ]

1) pl. secret history; facts relating to secret or private affairs, as of governments or of individuals: often used (commonly in the form anecdota) as the title of works treating of such matters.

2) A short narrative of a particular or detached incident; a single passage of private life, =Syn. Anecdote, Story.

An anecdote is the relation of an interesting or amusing incident, generally of a private nature, and is always reported as true/

A story may be true or fictious, and generally has reference to a series of incidents so arranged and related as to be entertaining.

In this treatment of the word there are some things not observed before:

1) as is often done in dictionaries, thi sign < is used freely in the sense of ‘from’. One instance of its use is seen in the etymology above.

2) According to the etymology given here, the form which anecdote had in French was the plural, a form to be expected from the word’s being derived from a plural in Latin and in Greek. With this informatinon, it is easier to understand why it was in its plural form that the word made its first appearance in Engish.

3) The remainder f the Century entry is easily understood with the possible exeption of the abbreviation”priv,. ” for privative, a word used in grammar in connection with those prefixes which change the sense of a word from a positive to a negative one, as do un-, il-, in-, ir-, in English.(Compae such words as lawful, unlawful, legal, illegal; tolerant, intolerant, regular, irregular). Greek made use of a prefix of this kind, a-, which might also appear as an-. In Greek grammar this prefix is referred to as” alpha privative”

It may appear to the beginner that by this time we have certainly found out all there is to know about anecdote, but we have not.

Here is how the entry looks in the Oxford English dictionary.

Anecdote( ). [a fr. Anecdote, or ad. Its source, med. L. Anecdota(see sense I), a. Gr. Things unpublished, f. Published, f. To give out, publish, applied by Procopies to his “Unpublished Memories” of the of the Emperor Justinian, which consisted chiefly of tales of the private life of the court;whence the application of the name to short stories or particulars]

1) pl. Secret, private, or hitherbo unpublished narratives or details of history. (At first, and how again occas. Used in L form anecdota( ) 1676 MARVELL Mr. Smirke Wks. 1875 IV.41. A man ... might make a pleasant story of the anecdota of that meeting. 1727. Swift”Gulliver” VIII. 230. Those who pretend to write anecdotes, or secret history[...]

2) The narrative of a detached incident, or of a single event, event told as being in itself interesting or striking( At first, An item of gossip)

1761 Gorke in Elli’s Orig. Left 11. 483. IV. 429. Monsieur Coccei will tell you all the anecdotes of London better then I can[...] 1838. Ht. Martineau Demerara

12. He told some anecdotes of Alfred’s childhood. Mod. An after-dinner anecdote