The Liar's Dictionary

For some, of course, the thrill of browsing a dictionary comes from the fact that arcane or obscure words are discovered and can be brought back, cud-like, and used expressly to impress others in conversation. I admit that I shook out psithurism from the understory of the dictionary there to delight you, but the gesture might be seen as calculated. Get me and my big words; phwoar, hear me roar, obliquely, in the forest; let me tell you about the silent p that you doubtless missed, etc., etc., and that psithurism is likely to come via the Greek ψι′θυρος, whispering, slanderous. How fascinating! says this type of dictionary-reader. I am fascinating because I know the meaning of this word. When used like this, the dictionary becomes fodder for a reader, verbage-verdage. We all know one of these people, whose conversation is no more than expectorate word-dropping. This reader will disturb your nap in the café window just to comment upon the day’s anemotropism. He will admit to

leucocholy just in order to use the word in his apology as you drop your napkin and reel back, pushing your chair away. He will pursue you through hedgerows just to alert you to the smeuse of your flight.

Of course, this dictionary reader also celebrates the beauty of a word, its lustre and power, but for him the value of its sillage is turned to silage.

He would use crinkling as a noun correctly, with a flourish. (Preface as over explanation, as metabombast.)

There is no perfect reader of a dictionary.

The perfect dictionary would know the difference between, say, a ‘prologue’ and a ‘preface’. Dictionary as: so, what happens?

Dictionary as about clarity but also honesty.

If one is

wont to index these things, another category of reader submits to the digressiveness of a dictionary, whereby an eyeline is cast from word to word in sweeping jags within from page to page. No regard for the formalities of left-to-right reading, theirs is a reading style that loops and chicanes across columns and pages, and reading is something led by curiosity, or snagged by serendipity.

Should a preface pose more questions than it answers? Should a preface just pose?

A dictionary as an unreliable narrator.

But haven’t we all had private moments of pleasure when reading a dictionary? Just dipping, come on in, the water’s lovely type of pleasure, submerging only if something takes hold of your toe and will not unbite. Private pleasures not to be displayed in public by café windows.

A sense of pleasure or satisfaction with a dictionary is possible. It might arise when finding confirmation of a word’s guessed spelling (i.e. i before e), or upon retrieving from it a word that had momentarily come loose from the tip of your tongue. The pleasure of reading rather than using a dictionary might come when amongst its pages you find a word that is new to you and neatly sums up a sensation, quality or experience that had hitherto gone nameless: a moment of solidarity and recognition – s

omeone else must have had the same sensation as me – I am not alone! Pleasure may come with the sheer glee at the textures of an unfamiliar word, its new taste between your teeth. Glume. Forb. The anatomy of a word strimmed clean or porched in your teeth.

In some even quite modern dictionaries, if you look up the word giraffe it ends its entry with [SEE: cameleopard]. If you look up cameleopard it says [SEE: giraffe]. This is the dictionary’s ecosystem.

From childhood we’re taught that a dictionary begins, roughly, with an aardvark

and ends, roughly, with a zebra and the rest is a rough game of lexical tug-of-war between the two, cameleopards and giraffes playing umpire.

I think the perfect dictionary would not be written in the first person because it should make objective claims. It probably should not refer to a second-person ‘you’ because this might feel like bullying. A preface should be sure of itself. Dictionaries as tied to longing, tied to trust, tied to jouissance and surrender – but all this seems a little too fruity and affected. Better, surely, that both lexicographer and user should be unseen or unregarded. More overlookable than a well-known word that does not need defining.

The perfect preface would know when to shut—

Dictionaries as unsafe, heady things. It is safer in many ways to treat your memory as an encyclopaedia, and keep your dictionary mobile in your mouth. Words passing from mouth to mouth, as baby birds take food from the mother.

How many similes can you fit in a preface? How garbled can a preface be? The perfect book should grab the reader and the perfect dictionary should be easily grasped.