Hello everyone.
It’s great to have this opportunity to meet other local writers. I’m an Adelaide author, and in my previous life I was an academic who specialised in lexicography—the art and science of dictionaries. You can imagine how much I loved Pip Williams’ The Dictionary of Lost Words.
I often use the Cambridge Dictionary online to check British versus American spelling, but dictionaries can help with so many other aspects of writing: grammar, meaning, pronunciation, style (formal or informal), example sentences, synonyms, word frequency, usage, etymology . . .
When I was writing my novel Crime and Prejudice—a playful peek behind the scenes of Jane Austen’s world—I used the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) frequently to see if a word was current in Jane Austen’s time. There were quite a few surprises. I thought ‘empowered’ was a modern word, but there it was in the OED being used as far back as 1690:
‘to give (a person) more control over his or her life or circumstances, by increasing civil rights, independence, self-esteem, etc.; to give (a person) the confidence to control his or her life or circumstances, esp. as gained from an awareness of or a willingness to exert her or his rights.’
On the other hand, ‘waste-paper basket’, which I wanted to use in my book, doesn’t appear till 1859, later than Jane Austen, with the first example being from another of my favourite writers, George Eliot. Where did Jane Austen's characters dispose of their scrap paper?! Maybe in the fireplace, that repository of secret messages and unwanted billets doux.
The dictionary meant I could verify my use of words and make my writing as accurate as possible. I was lucky to have access to the OED, but there are other excellent online dictionary resources that are available to everyone. The Cambridge Dictionary online is my favourite free dictionary, but I'd love to see what you use. Please let me know via the comments.
Happy writing, my author friends, and happy reading, everyone!
Hi Julia,
Thanks for the great article! Your background sounds really interesting. I'm thinking of writing a novel which is set in England around 1570. I'm wondering whether you have any suggestions about dictionaries relevant to that period? Or would that be too long ago to find something? Thank you.
Awesome read!