myriad

The Hubble Space Telescope's
view of Deep Field South
Unveils Myriad Galaxies

DEFINITION:

myriad adj. [mir'ee-id]

1. Constituting a very large, indefinite number; innumerable: the myriad fish in the ocean.

2. Composed of numerous diverse elements or facets: the myriad life of the metropolis. myriad noun

noun:

1. A vast number: the myriads of bees in the hive. 2. Archaic. Ten thousand.

[Greek murias, muriad-, ten thousand, from murios, countless.]— the American Heritage Dictionary

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QUESTIONS CONCERNING THE USAGE OF MYRIAD:

From THE AMERICAN HERITAGE DICTIONARY, 4th Ed., 2000:

Throughout most of its history in English myriad was used as a noun, as in a myriad of men.

In the 19th century it began to be used as an adjective, as in myriad men; this usage became so well entrenched that many people came to consider it as the only correct possibility. [emphasis added]

In fact, both uses have not only ample precedent in English but also etymological justification from Greek, inasmuch as the Greek word murias from which myriad derives could be used as either a noun or an adjective.

Both uses may be considered equally acceptable, as in Samuel Taylor Coleridge's “Myriad myriads of lives." [emphasis added]

This poetic, adjectival use became so well entrenched generally that many people came to consider it as the only correct use. In fact, both uses in English are parallel with those of the original ancient Greek. The Greek word mrias, from which myriad derives, could be used as either a noun or an adjective, but the noun mrias was used in general prose and in mathematics while the adjective mrias was used only in poetry.”

The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language: 4th. Ed. 2000.

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MYRIAD IN CURRENT USE — as an adjective:

I know people don’t proofread their myriad daily e-mail messages, and I have certainly been chagrined to discover, say, that I fired off “bike” when I meant “back.” —JAIMIE ESPTEIN July 8, 2007 The New York Times Magazine, On Language. "Sentence Sensibility."

•

MYRIAD IN CURRENT USE — as a noun:

Katherine Whiteside, the author of ''The Way We Garden Now,'' tested six pairs of gloves while building a raised-bed potager. She cautioned that ''no one pair of gloves is going to do the myriad of different tasks there are to do in the garden.''—By Susan Guerrero, The New York Times. PHYSICAL CULTURE | "Gear Test With Katherine Whiteside, Garden Writer; "As the Gloves Go, So Goes the Garden" . Published June 4, 2007.

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USAGE AUTHORITY BRIAN A. GARNER'S
VIEWS CONCERNING MYRIAD:

Garner makes no reference at all to the word's "poetic" overtones or lingering 19th Century preferences. He chooses, instead, to deal with the controversy of "myriad of things" versus "myriad things" as nothing more than a question of wordage, i.e., the number of words involved. He prefers parsimony which was expressed well in The Elements of Style by Strunk and White: "Let each word tell."

To make your phrase more concise, use myriad as an adjective <a myriad drugs> than as a noun <a myriad of drugs>. Here the better use is illustrated:

• "June 1996: Telectronics resumes production after wrangling over myriad legal and manufacturing issues."[1]

• "Back when we still thought America was a melting pot instead of a collection of hyphens, the crux of combining myriad nationalities into one was in that oath."[2]

In short, prefer "myriad issues" over "a myriad of issues."

Prefer "myriad nationalites" over "a myriad of nationalities."

[1] Al Lewis, "Pacemaker Firm Pulls Plug," Rocky Mountain News, 14 Dec. 1996, at 1B.
[2] Pat Truly, "The choice All Immigrants Must Make," Baltimore Sun, 14 Jan. 1997, at 9A.

Page 441 in Oxford Dictionary of American Usage.

Thus, Garner would have Katherine Whiteside's words revised as follows: "Katherine Whiteside, the author of ''The Way We Garden Now,'' tested six pairs of gloves while building a raised-bed potager. She cautioned that ''no one pair of gloves is going to do the myriad of different tasks [read myriad different tasks] there are to do in the garden.''

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The usage issues surrounding myriad can be addressed simply by asking and thoughtfully answering this question:

Q. If in a student paper a college English Composition teacher reads

"the extravaganza engendered a myriad of memories,"

should the teacher underline (with the usual red ink) the words a myriad of memories and in the nearest margin write "Usage: Change to myriad memories."?

Answer #1

Brian A. Garner, Bloggin' John, & other careful writers say

Yes. Change "myriad of memories" to the more concise "myriad memories."

Answer. #2

From easy-going, permissive types, such as the editors at Merriam-Webster's who include no Usage Note at all about myriad in neither their Third Edition of the Merriam-Webster's International Unabridged Dictionary nor The Merriam-Webster Dictionary of English Usage (1989).

"Say, ah [answers our non-prescriptivist respondent], I haven't thought much about this, but either way sounds O.K. to me. I think I've heard the "of" tucked in there hundreds of times — maybe not a "myriad of times" (Ha, ha. A joke. Get it? "myriad of times" ?) — but often enough to say I'll go with the majority [read crowd —B.J.] and say,
mm'No. "A myriad of memories" is just fine. So — hah! — is "a myriad of times".'"

————————————————————————————————— Coleridge's tribute to Shakespeare:

In John Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919), we read the famous bon mot coined by the romantic poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge in praise of the Renaissance Master:

QUOTATION: Our myriad-minded Shakespeare.
NUMBER: 5281
AUTHOR: Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834)
ATTRIBUTION: Biographia Literaria Chapter xv. Note 1.

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IN THE PLURAL, from the Columbia Guide to Standard American Usage:

myriads (plural n.) Hyperbolic but Standard

As a noun, myriad means “ten thousand,” but its most frequent sense is “any very large, indefinite number of persons or things,” as in We could see a myriad of stars or We could see myriads of them.

The plural is hyperbolic but Standard: "myriads of issues" [example and emphasis added—B.J.].

The Standard adjective myriad simply means “innumerable”: There were myriad stars in the sky.

The Columbia Guide to Standard American English.
Copyright © 1993, Columbia University Press.

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Arrayed here,
the most common options:

A]*Myriad possibilities .... Standard. Concise.

B]*A myriad possibilities .... . Standard. Concise.
C]nA myriad of possibilities .... .Standard. "of."
D]nMyriads of possibilities .... Standard. Hyperbolic. "of."
E]nA myriad myriad possibilities . .... Poetic. Hyperbolic.
F]nMyriad myriads of possibilities .... .Poetic. Hyperbolic. "of."
G]nMyriad upon myriad possibilities ... . Poetic. Hyperbolic.

* Preferred forms in school English.—B.J.

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kakistocracy

6This is a post-in-process.6

K is for . . . . kakistocracy
www.arnhill.com
•
Definition and Image from
EvolveFish.com
•

The American Kakistocracy

Picture & Caption from
Main St. USA.com

•

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DEFINITION

kakistocracy n. [kak-is-toc'-ra-see]

Government by the least qualified or most undesirable citizens.

The Hutchinson Encyclopedia
•

The government of a state by the worst citizens.

Online Oxford English Dictionary
•

_____________________________________________________________
The Word In Use, at the "DAILY KOS":

On June 4, 2007 a blogger using the nom de blog "philinmaine" at the Daily Kos, a lefty weblog if there ever was one, posted a piece titled

"Welcome to the kakistocracy: Any way you spell it, we're living in it"

The title's reference to spelling derives from something [that] happened [to philinmaine"] during

the recent National Spelling Bee. A word that's lingered in obscurity for a century — a word we all really need today — wiggled back into the public discourse, thanks to Isabel Jacobson, a 14 year old spelling champion from Madison, Wisconsin. She mentioned that her favorite difficult word was kakistocracy.

Someone noticed, sent an email that made the rounds, and a friend of mine had an idea. We all agreed: this needs to be a bumper sticker!
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We hope as people start to see it on bumpers, a few will look it up, and heads will start to nod in agreement. It should incite some lively parking lot conversations, too! Around 70% of the people will agree: we live in a kakistocracy.

By philinmaine on Mon Jun 04, 2007 at 04:38:06 AM PDT
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/6/4/73433/64392

_____________________________________________________________
ETYMOLOGY

From the Greek kakistos [worst] + -cracy [-rule], on the model of the word aristocracy.

The Online Oxford English Dictionary
•

From what English grammarians call the superlative form of "worst" (kakistos), let's shift our attention, now, to the basic, or what they call the positive form, namely, the word "bad," which in Greek is kakos, sometimes spelled cakos or cak.

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Spreading the "bad" word

From kak'os—bad—come caco-, kako-, and cac-, combining forms that have generated many words—because, obviously, so many aspects of life can go bad!

A Note on the Pronunciation of "caco-":
Speaking generally, the a in "kako," "caco," and "cak" rhymes with the a in "cat" or, fittingly enough, the a in "bad."

Here are a just a few of what I call "caco-combinations" that you are likely to encounter, especially in medical, academic, or fine arts settings:

cachexia — [ka-keks’-see-a]mmn.mmFrom kakos ‘bad’ + hexis ‘habit.’
mmMedicine. Weakness and wasting of the body due to mmsevere chronic illness.

•

cacodemon n. — [kak-uh-dee’-mon]mmn.
mmChemistry. A malevolent spirit or person.
mmmm[kakos ‘bad’ + daimon ‘spirit.’]

•

cacoethes — [kak-o-wee’-thez ]mmn. [in sing. ] rare From kakos ‘bad’ + thos ‘disposition.’mm

mmAn irresistible urge to do something inadvisable.

N.B. See the references later in the blog to cacoethes loquendi and cacoethes seribendi as described in Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable.

•

cacography — [ka-kägra-fy]mmn. archaic From kakos ‘bad,’ on the pattern of orthography [the conventional spelling system of a language].mm
mmBad handwriting or spelling.
cacographer [ka-kägra-fer] n.

•

cacology — [ka-col’-uh-gy]mmn. archaicmFrom kakos ‘bad.’
mmBad choice of words or
mmPoor pronunciation.

•

cacophony — [ka-kä’f-uh-nee]mmn.mFrom kakos ‘bad’ + phony ‘sound.’m

mmHarsh, discordant mixture of sounds.
cacophonous, adjective

Oxford English Dictionaries v1.0 © Apple Computers

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Kakkammn.

We should note also that the Online Etymology Dictionary reports that the baby-talk word "ka-ka"— a.k.a. "doo-doo," "poo-poo," or the variant "hu-ka" (used in my family of origin) — goes way back in the history of English:

Kako- was a common prefix in Greek, and has often crossed over into English., e.g. cacography, the opposite of calligraphy [ ]. Etymologists connect it with PIE* kakka- "to defecate."

*English is an Indo-European "daughter" language to the parent Proto-Indo-European Language (PIE), which was spoke by people who lived in Southwest Russia around 4,000 to 5,000 BCE.

A History of English by Barbara A. Fennell

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CACOMANIA: Two definitions

1] — AlphaDictionary.com, on its "Corrected List of Manias - Fears, Loves, Obsessions," aptly defines cacomania as an obsession with ugliness.

2] Bloggin' John offers cacomania as a nonce word designed precisely for the occasion of this posting. To wit, cacomania is a strong interest in but not quite an obsession with words formed with the caco- combining form.

Three word mavins who have done the requisite searching and researching of caco- terms to deserve the honorific "Caco-Form-Competent" are Paul Dickson, Charles Harrinton Elster, and Robert H. Hill.

Presenting himself as perhaps the most inventive and adventuresome of the three, Dickson, in his Word Treasury: A Connoisseur's Collection of Old and New, Weird and Wonderful, Useful and Outlandish Words (1992) shows us a rarely seen word and offers cogent reasons for its need:

Cacophenism [cac-o-feen'-ism] Using a harsh or cruel expression where a milder one would be proper; the opposite of euphemism. Some would argue that dysphemism is another opposite—albeit in the other direction—of euphemism. Using a disparaging or belittling term to describe something that deserves more is a dysphemism. It is, for instance, dysphemism to speak of a mansion as a shack or a BMW as a jalopy. (38) —Dickson's Word Treasury. New York: Wiley.

For Dickson denigration admits of degrees. If sweet is euphemistic, cloying would be dysphemistic, and

Perhaps the three phrases derived from the caco- form that you will likely encounter are well described in Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase & Fable:

cacode'mon [kak-o-de'-mon] An evil spirit. Astrologers gave this name to The Twelfth House of Heaven, from which only evil prognostics [advance indications or portents of a future event] proceed.
"Hie thee to hell for shame, and leave the world, / Thou cacodemon." — Shakespeare: Richard III., i,3.

•

cacoe'thes. [ka-ko-ee'•theez] A "bad habit"
mmcacoe'thes loquen'di. [lo-kwen'-di] A passion for making speech or for talking.

•

mmcacoe'thes scriben'di. [scri-ben'-di] The love of rushing into print; a mania for authorship.

Brewer The Dictionary of Phrase & Fable.
Ware, Hertfordshire: Wordsworth Edition Ltd., 1993, 196.
•

Finally, in the domain of classical rhetoric—notoriously replete with terminology derived from Greek and Roman roots—we have this foursome of caco- categories, as recounted by Richard Lanham in his redoubtable Handlist of Rhetorical Terms:

Cacemphaton (cac EM pha ton; Greek. "ill sounding")
mm1. Scurrilous jest; lewd allusion or double entendre, as when the blues singer Big Bill Broonzy sings, "I'm gonna squeeze your lemon, baby, 'till the good juice comes."
mm2. Sounds combined for harsh effect. So [Henry] Peacham [author of The Garden of Eloquence]: "when there come many syllables of one sound together in one sentence, like a continual jarring upon one string, thus, neither honour nor nobility, could move a naughty, niggardly* noddy."

*niggardly: adv. archaic often offensive in a stingy or meager manner.
USAGE NOTE: "Niggard n. a stingy or ungenerous person (often offensive) . . . along with its adverbial form niggardly, should be used with caution. Owing to the sound similarity to the highly inflammatory racial epithet nigger, these words can cause unnecessary confusion and unintentional offense.

•

Cacosistation (ca co SIS ta ton; Greek. "badly constructed").
mmAn argument that can serve as well on either side of a question.

•

Cacosyntheton (ca co SYN the ton) Greek. "ill-composed").
mmAwkward transposition of the parts of a sentence. Puttenham's example: "In my years lusty, many a deed doughty did I." Or Churchill's famous "This is the kind of nonsense up with which I shall not put." Or, as in this only partially successful syntactical gymnastic from Kingsley Amis's I Want it Now: "Now and again it felt rather like that. It was now, or again, now."

•

Cacozelia (ca co ZE li a; Greek. "unhappy imitation; affectation")
mmStudied affectation of style; affected diction made up of adaptation of Latin words or inkhorn terms, as when Hamlet paroies Osric: . . .

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Read more >> Options >>

ersatz

Ersatz Font

www.myfonts.com

ersatz mmmm[er-zahts, -sahts] morm[er-zahts, -sahts]

1. Adj. serving as a substitute; synthetic; artificial:
mm“an ersatz coffee made from grain.”

2. Noun. an artificial substance or article used to replace something natural or genuine; a substitute.

Merriam-Webster's Third International Unabridged Dictionary

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ETYMOLOGY

Ersatz, the German noun for a substitute, derives from the verb ersetzen, which means to replace. Ersatz entered English between 1870-75.

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HISTORICAL INSTANCES

One gets a sense of the variety of the “expendables” or “imitables” in human experience that admit to or suffer vulnerability to an ersatz by reading the sampling of sentences from 1875 to 1956 listed in the OED’s entry for ersatz:

1875 Encycl. Brit. >> (German army), Those who are exempted..are passed into the Ersatz reserve.

1892 J. ROYCE >> To me he is a great comfort, although..no Ersatz for the aforesaid condition of my heart.

1910 Pedagogical Seminary >> When names are forgotten owing to such a disturbance, an Ersatz name appears.

1919 War Terms in Athenæum >> Another word not seldom met with is ‘ersatz’. It is the German ‘substitute’.

1927 Daily Express >> It will merely be an imitation Parliament, an ‘Ersatz’ Parliament, designed to fulfil the immediate needs of the Dictatorship.

1928 T. S. ELIOT >> Of course Mr. Shaw and Mr. Wells are also much occupied with religion and Ersatz-Religion.

1930 Observer >> The coffee..will be..tempered with a judicious mixture of ‘ersatz’.

1938 Jrnl. R. Aeronaut. Soc. >> The problem of ‘Ersatz’ materials is well considered and modern aeronautical materials (like plastics, compressed wood, resin glues, etc.) are described.

1939 Punch >> A real tobacco. There is no Ersatz in Four Square.

1940 Nature >> Present-day brands of margarine cannot be considered in any way Ersatz butter.

1942 L. B. NAMIER >> This set a high premium on Hitler's jack-boots and ersatz uniforms.

1944 E. H. W. MEYERSTEIN >> He [sc. Swinburne] went now and then to places where women beat him, which must have been a wretched ersatz for the sort of thing he wanted, e.g. to be flogged by the Duke of Wellington.

1949 >> A breakfast of black bread and captured ersatz coffee made from roasted grain.

1950 Mind LIX. >> Propositions regarded as ersatz facts or quasi-things.

1952 H. READ >> All we can create in that way is an ersatz culture, the synthetic product of those factories we call variously universities, colleges or museums.

1956 C. WILSON >> Kant, with his ersatz morality, is a special target.

The Online Oxford English Dictionary

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Ersatz in Recent Use

From The New Yorker. The Talk of the Town.
Comment: Mr. Independent. July 2, 2007.
By George Packer

New York Mayor
Michael Bloomberg

Illustration: Tom Bachtell

The last seven elected Presidents have come from the South or the West, making it almost an article of faith that no one from the Northeast (see under: Dukakis, Kerry) has a chance to win, or should even be considered American. This remarkable streak resulted from demographic change, the switch of the South from Democratic to Republican, and an ersatz populism perfected by millionaire politicians and encouraged by television. If a five-foot-seven divorced Jew with a nasal whine is taken seriously as a Presidential candidate, it would at the very least diminish the power of faux symbols in our political life; and a Clinton-Giuliani-Bloomberg race would so thoroughly explode the Sun Belt’s lock on the White House that an entirely new kind of politics might be possible, in which evolution is not at issue, no one has to pretend to like pork rinds, and the past tense of “drag” is “dragged.” It would also mark the end of New York’s longtime estrangement from the rest of the country and complete its post-September 11th return to being the great American city. After which Americans could start to resent New York again.

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An Apt Name

If you were on a team of scientists dedicated to building a computer that displays human-like cognitive abilities, what name would you give to your project? Computer designers at Brown University are working on just such a project, and they have aptly answered the naming problem with:


Furthermore, they have come up with a goal statement that makes clever use of the figure of speech of parallelism,

"Our Goal is to build a first-rate, second-rate brain,"

and they have adopted an effective logo that symbolically states the group's interest in developing computer circuits that emulate those of the human brain:

.

Left, human; right, ersatz.

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filial

m.

filialmmm adj.mmm [fil'-e-al or fee'-lee'-ul]

pertaining to, or becoming in, a son or daugher

bearing the relationship of a child

filiality adv.

Webster's Dictionary, New Edition (Original title: Chamber's
Etymological English Dictionary, 1966) Pyramid Com. Inc., 1972.

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NOTE:

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

The definitions of filial that appear above come from a compact gem of a dictionary titled Webster's Dictionary—also known informally as Webster's Denim Dictionary [because of the design of its covers]. First published in 1972, now out of print.


The title, Webster's Dictionary, makes false use of a great man's name and my blood boil. At the end of this posting, you will find a short screed I've written about the use of the name Webster in dictionary titles. Read "Never Pre-judge a Book With a Faux-denim Cover and a Title That Lies" if you like. It won't tell you anything new about filial, but it will tell you something about how a book title comprised of only two words can represent deception.

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

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ETYMOLOGY

filial 1393

• From Middle French filial,
  
• which came from literary Latin filialis ("of a son or daughter"),
• which came from Classical Latin filius ("son") filia ("daughter").

—Online Etymology Dictionary, 2001, Douglas Harper.

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Filial piety IN USE

From "Re-Education"
by Ann Hulbert

In China, a child's schooling is a family endeavor worthy of great sacrifice, in money and time. Over dinner in Shanghai, a melodiously voluble Mrs. Tang confirmed that ''when Meijie was very young we controlled her a lot, watched her very closely and guided her carefully. Luckily she was very cooperative and followed our instruction.'' Effort rather than ability is considered the key to achievement -- and among the most important expressions of filial piety is studying diligently (a word I heard a lot). ''If there is no dark and dogged will, there will be no shining accomplishment; if there is no dull and determined effort, there will be no brilliant achievement'' goes an old saying, invoked as soon as school starts -- a far cry from the Western progressive interest in encouraging curiosity and play in the early years.

Ann Hulbert."Re-education." The New York Times. April 1, 2007.

Ann Hulbert, a contributing writer [to the New York Times], is the author of ''Raising America: Experts, Parents and a Century of Advice About Children.'

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COMMENT

If we use the word parental to describe the attitudes and behaviors of parents in their relationships with their children, what word do we use to describe the attitudes and behaviors of children in their relationships with their parents?

Neither childish nor childlike will do, because each describes a self-referential behavior. There's no need for parents to be around when a youngster's actions are immature (childish), or are admirably simple and devoid of guile (childlike). And there seems to be no traditional or immediate cultural longing or demand for a specific child-to-parent adjectival modifier, like, say, maybe, child'-al or child'-ren-al, child'-i-al or child-ren'-i-al.

But as you have already read at the top of this post, there is a word to describe a child's response to a parent—it is filial—a word not widely known or used. The phrase filial piety, "respect and devotion to one's parents," is a culture-wide ideal in China, prompted by the strictures of Confusianism. It, too, is not widely used in the United States. A look into the text-search function of the New York Times' archives (http://query.nytimes.com/search/query) indicates that during the past ten years in the Times, the word parental has appeared 3,338 time, filial, 215 times. During the same time frame, filial piety made 32 appearances (more often than I had expected).

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Filial piety IN USE (in the NYTimes):

At first glance, the Chinese section [of Elizabeth Street, Manhattan, N.Y.] forms a nearly separate enclave, an impression reinforced by faces that seem straight from Ming Dynasty scrolls, drawn with a fine brush in black ink. On the sidewalk a very old Chinese woman, taking the smallest of steps, is supported at the elbow by a young man, probably a grandson, his face showing not the slightest grimace of impatience. Confucian filial piety lives on Elizabeth Street.

By Richard Lourie: "My Manhattan; Worlds Meld Along Elizabeth Street": "Was I ever wrong about Elizabeth Street!" The New York Times, June 14, 2002.

•

Richard Rorty is a scandal to his profession. He is a philosopher who thinks that philosophy is a distraction from more important matters. He has for years argued that the pursuit of Truth -- as distinct from the humbler search for usable truths -- is fueled by self-deception. He has insisted that even if humanity all too often behaves cruelly and sadistically, we would be better off without a sense of sin. Nevertheless, Rorty has a substantial streak of filial piety. It was his hero, John Dewey, who first scandalized his philosophical readers almost a century ago by urging them to turn away from ''the problems of philosophy'' to ''the problems of men.'' ''Achieving Our Country'' is an appeal to American intellectuals to abandon the intransigent cynicism of the academic, cultural left and to return to the political ambitions of Emerson, Dewey, Herbert Croly and their allies.

By Alan Ryan: A book review of Richard Rorty's Achieving Our Country: Leftist Thought in Twentieth-Century America, Cambridge, Mass.:
Harvard University Press. Published in the New York Times on
May 17, 1998.

•

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FROM THE OEDILF:
THE Omnificent English Dictionary In Limerick Form

Here is a limerick titled "Begetter" written by a contributing reader—whose nom de blog is Recumbantman—of the OEDILF website (which touts a bundle of 41,000 limericks):

Begetter

Few pleasures are simpler or better
Than reading a filial letter.
Will Shakespeare wrote
As a dutiful son
To his father, "the onlie begetter."

Limerick #14195. Submitted: 06 Apr 2006. (http://www. oedilf.com)

The epithet "onlie begetter" appeared in the Dedication that accompanied the original manuscript of Shakespeare's Sonnets. It reads, in part:

TO.THE.ONLIE.BEGETTER.OF. / THESE SONNETS. / MR. W.H. ALL.HAPPINESSE.

The phrase means "the only begetter," "the one who alone inspired" Shakespeare's collection of Sonnets. As Dr. G. R. Ledger — formerly Honorary Fellow, Classics, University of Reading, U.K. ("Shakespeare's Sonnets" at (http://www.nyptkd.com))—explains, that all we know about the identity of "the onlie begetter" is that his initials were probably "W. H."—they are smudged on the page — and that scholars are not at all certain about the authorship of the Dedication itself; it could have been penned by Shakespear's publisher, whose initials, "T.T." appear at the bottom of the page. Recumbantman's enigmatic limerick adds a bit more dead air to the discussion by suggesting that "the onlie begetter" is William Shakespeare's biological father, John Shakespeare, whose initials, clearly, are "J.S."

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Never Pre-judge a Dictionary With a
Faux-denim Cover and a Title that Lies

Sometimes it's difficult to eschew a clamoring-to-be-heard cliche. Making noise in my ear right now is one I'll give into: "Never Judge a Book by Its Cover." The covers of the dictionary that gives us our definition (above) of filial — a rare paperback that calls itself on its front cover Webster's Dictionary and on its back cover Webster's Denim Dictionary — features a textured, faux-jeans blue denim motif, with red stitching delineating the belt line of a pair of jeans and the curved-top of a front pocket, with a smaller watch pocket tucked-right behind it. The lettering is a bold stencil type in white, presenting, just below the center-line, the title in bold capitals, "WEBSTER'S DICTIONARY." The book's cover design represents an over-the-top marketing gambit of the early 70's. "Hey, man, that's a hip dictionary you've got there. Guess a person can look up words and be groovy at the same time."

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

And yet, Webster's Dictionary is as compendious and as enlightening as any soft-cover dictionary of 704 pages can possibly be--and the Denim Webster's numbers only 604 pages! (Get what I mean?)

Besides 550 pages replete with etymologically based definitions of over 75,000 words, the Denim Webster's (and here I am quoting promotional — yet veridical — text from the back cover) is "brilliantly concise" and "exhaustively thorough," a dictionary that "traces word roots in a score of languages."

In additional, the book offers the reader the following added features:
= seven pages of a History of the English Language (including;
= twenty-one pages of over 850 "Words and Phrases from Latin, Greek, and Modern Foreign languages";
= five pages explaining approximately 120 prefixes;
= seven pages explaining approximately 160 suffixes; and
= a solo page delineating the rules of Roman numerals, from I to ICC.

The only trait of the book I dislike is its damnable title!

Here's why.

Since the late 19th century, companies other than the one founded by Noah Webster and eventually known as the Merriam-Webster company, have borrowed on the commercial dictionarial cachet of the name "Webster" and accommodated it for their own use and profit. "As a result of lawsuits filed by Merriam," reports Wikipedia, "American courts ruled that 'Webster's' entered the public domain . . . in 1889 (G. & C. Merriam Co. v. Ogilvie, 159 Fed. 638 (1908)) and another court ruled in 1917 that it entered the public domain in 1834 when Noah Webster's 1806 dictionary's copyright lapsed. Thus, Webster's became a genericized trademark and others were free to use the name on their own works."
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"So many dictionaries of varied size and quality have been called Webster's that the name no longer has any specific brand meaning. Despite this, many people still recognize and trust the name. Thus, the brand "Webster's" continues as a powerful and lucrative marketing tool. In recent years, even established dictionaries with no direct link to Noah Webster whatsoever have adopted his name, adding to the confusion. Random House dictionaries are now called Random House Webster's, and Microsoft's Encarta World English Dictionary is now Encarta Webster's Dictionary."—Wikipedia.com

To keep hold of as much power as still remains in the original signification of the brand name Webster's, purchasers of 21 century Merriam-Webster products will note on the reverse side of a M-W dictionary that the company still bears resentment at the theft of its name, and offers this snappish statement:
"The name Webster alone is no guarantee of excellence. It is used by a number of publications and may serve mainly to mislead an unwary buyer.
"Merriam-WebsterTM is the name you should look for when you consider the purchase of dictionaries or other fine reference books. It carries the reputation of a company that has been publishing since 1831 and is your assurance of quality and authority."—Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Eleventh Edition, 2003.

Even if copyright lawyers for Noah Webster's early company were at fault, snoozing away their work days in the parks of Springfield, Massachusetts, Noah Webster and the company he founded was robbed!

But note well that this writer is no shill for Merriam-Webster. I, in fact, prefer the current "Random House Webster's College Dictionary" over the current Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Webster's 11th, as it is informally known. But every time I pick up my copy of the Random House dictionary, I noticed that purloined name Webster's, with the apostrophe marking possession of a seemingly bipartite company (Random House + Webster) peering up at me, its letters seeming like teeth in a cynical smile ripped from the face of a Random House sales management executive. Though some buyers are impressed by the name Webster's on a non-Merriam-Webster's product, and though the presence of "Webster's" in anybody's dictionary title may be legal, I say such usage of the name is a scamming shame.

Two final notes and this screed will be done. First, more readers should know that the catch phrase "look it up in Webster's" refers not to one particular brand of dictionary but to American dictionaries in general—those that trace their lineage back to Mr.Webster and those that do not. Two, the copy rite for the term "collegiate," as a referent to a size of dictionary appropriate for college work, is currently held by Merriam-Webster. Let's hope they keep that term under the eaves of their Springfield headquarters.

And thus ends the story of a faux-denim soft-backed dictionary published 45 years ago whose pages present lexicography that is notably useful and well-composed but whose title, The Webster's [Denim] Dictionary" carries a wildly unknown sub-text still puffing in outrage at American publishing houses that have stolen a name and muddled recognition of ownership in that niche of the book world given to precision in diction—the ambit of dictionaries.

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