The Dictionary of Lost Words(33)
Dr Murray’s rage came back to me then and I felt mine rising to meet it. It should not be, this word, I thought. It shouldn’t exist. Its meaning should be obscure and unthinkable. It should be a relic, and yet it was as easily understood now as at any time in history. The joy of telling the story faded.
‘I’m glad it isn’t in the Dictionary, Lizzie. It’s a horrible word.’
‘That it may be, but it’s a true word. Dictionary or no, bondmaids will always exist.’
Lizzie went to her wardrobe to select a clean pinny. ‘Mrs B has left me to get dinner on, Essymay. I have to go. You can stay, if you like.’
‘I will if you don’t mind, Lizzie. I need to write to Ditte. I’d like the letter to make the morning post.’
‘It’s about time.’
August 16th, 1901
My dear Esme,
I have waited so long for your letter. I thought of it as my penance, and justly deserved. Nevertheless, it has been a hard sentence, and I am glad for it to be over.
I have not been in solitary confinement and am well aware of all that can be reported of a factual nature. You have grown like a ‘sapling willow’ according to a rare flourish from James when describing the garden party for ‘H to K’. Your father complains that you now tower over him but is wistful about your growing resemblance to Lily.
I know enough to be satisfied that you are reading well and learning one or two domestic skills considered desirable in a young lady. All these details I have gratefully received, but what I have longed for these past years is something of you, Esme. Your thoughts and desires. Your developing opinions and curiosities.
In this respect, your letter has been a balm. I have read and reread it, noticing on each pass some further evidence of your keen mind. The recent fuss about a missing word has certainly piqued your interest and, while it was not intentionally excluded, ‘bondmaid’ joins a number of fine words that should have been included in Volume I but were not (do not, for instance, mention ‘Africa’ to Dr Murray: it is a sore point).
What is clear to me is that during your time under the sorting table you absorbed more than most who have sat before a blackboard for six years. It was a mistake for any of us to assume the Scriptorium was not a suitable place to grow and learn. Our thinking was limited by convention (the most subtle but oppressive dictator). Please forgive our lack of imagination.
And so, to your main enquiry.
Unfortunately, there is no capacity for the Dictionary to contain words that have no textual source. Every word must have been written down, and you are right to assume they largely come from books written by men, but this is not always the case. Many quotations have been penned by women, though they are, of course, in the minority. You might be surprised to learn that some words take their provenance from nothing more substantial than a technical manual or a pamphlet. I know of at least one word that was found on the label of a medicine bottle.
You are correct in your observation that words in common use that are not written down would necessarily be excluded. Your concern that some types of words, or words used by some types of people, will be lost to the future is really quite perceptive. I can think of no solution, however. Consider the alternative: the inclusion of all these words, words that come and go in a year or two, words that do not stick to our tongue through generations. They would clog the Dictionary. All words are not equal (and as I write this, I think I see your concern more clearly: if the words of one group are considered worthier of preservation than those of another … well, you have given me pause for thought).
Early ambitions that the Dictionary be a complete record of the meaning and history of all English words has proved quite impossible, but let me reassure you that there are many fine words recorded in literary texts that also do not pass the tests laid down by Dr Murray and the Philological Society. I am enclosing one such word.
‘Forgiven-ness.’
It is from a novel by Adeline Whitney called ‘Sights and Insights’. Beth read it soon after it was published. She wasn’t at all complimentary (Mrs Whitney is overt in her opinion that a woman should restrict her activities to the home and her words to the domestic), but she found this word interesting and wrote the slip out herself. Years later, I was asked to write the entry, though it never got past the first draft.
For reasons I’m sure I don’t need to explain, I have had cause to think of it lately. I was never very diligent in returning rejected words to the Scriptorium, and so here it is – an offering and a request. If you accept it, my soul would feel blessedly its own redemption and forgiven-ness (to quote Mrs Whitney).
Yours, with love,
Ditte
Two years after I received my first pay packet, Dr Murray asked me to show Rosfrith the process of sorting slips and checking senses and anything else that would help her settle in as the newest assistant. After half an hour, it was clear there was no need for my instruction. Like all her siblings, Rosfrith had been sorting slips since she was a child. She may not have hidden beneath the sorting table, but she knew her way around the Scriptorium.
‘I am superfluous to need,’ I said, and Rosfrith grinned. She was so like Elsie, though a little slimmer, a little taller, a little fairer. She had the same fine-featured face, the same downward slant to her eyes. They would have made her look sad if she didn’t smile so much. I left her at the desk she would share with her sister, just to the left of Dr Murray’s, and returned to my own. Slips for words beginning with L sat in neat piles along the edge. When I sat down, I wondered what it would feel like to divide the task of sorting them with someone who looked a little like me.