Jamieson's Dictionary of Scots: The Story of the First Historical Dictionary of the Scots Language

299 Pages·2012·2.599 MB·

by  Susan Rennie

’
Jamieson s Dictionary of Scots
FrontispiecePortraitofRev.JohnJamiesonbyWilliamYellowlees.
Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Cat. No. PG10. Reproduced by permission of the Scottish National
PortraitGallery.
’
Jamieson s Dictionary
of Scots
The Story of the First Historical
Dictionary of the Scots Language
SUSAN RENNIE
1
3
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Contents
Illustrations ix
Acknowledgements x
Preface xi
Abbreviations xiv
Editorial note xv
1 ‘A man of Letters’ 1
1.1 Introduction 1
1.2 Jamieson’s life and biographers 2
1.2.1 Biographical sources 2
1.2.2 Early life 3
1.2.3 Ministry in Forfar 4
1.2.4 The move to Edinburgh 6
1.3 Antiquarianism 11
1.3.1 Early works 11
1.3.2 George Hutton 13
1.3.3 George Chalmers and Caledonia 14
1.3.4 Contributions to the Society of Antiquaries
of Scotland 15
1.4 Jamieson’s other publications 16
1.4.1 Theological works 16
1.4.2 Poetic works 17
1.4.3 The Scots poems 18
1.4.4 Editions of Bruce and Wallace 20
2 Models and rivals 22
2.1 Overview 22
2.2 The Scots glossarists 23
2.2.1 Beginnings 23
2.2.2 Thomas Ruddiman 24
2.2.3 Glossarists after Ruddiman 26
vi Contents
2.3 Modern Scots 33
2.3.1 Poetic glossaries: Ramsay and Burns 33
2.3.2 Lists of Scotticisms 35
2.4 The idea of a Scots Dictionary 37
2.4.1 Early proposals 37
2.4.2 Boswell’s Scots dictionary 39
2.4.3 Hailes’s Specimen dictionary 40
2.4.4 A glossary of Older Scots 41
2.4.5 Robert Allan 42
2.5 English dictionaries 43
2.5.1 Johnson 43
2.5.2 Earlier English dictionaries 48
2.5.3 English dialect dictionaries 49
2.5.4 Jonathan Boucher 51
2.6 First steps in lexicography 52
2.6.1 Forfarshire place names 52
2.6.2 The Statistical Account 55
2.6.3 The Kelpie glossary 56
2.7 Summary 58
3 The Dictionary takes shape 60
3.1 Overview 60
3.2 The idea of the Dictionary 61
3.2.1 Thorkelin: the ‘learned stranger’ 61
3.2.2 A start on the Dictionary 66
3.2.3 Notes on Pinkerton’s glossary 66
3.2.4 A new Scots glossary 69
3.3 Gathering sources 70
3.3.1 Fellow bibliophiles 70
3.3.2 Editions of Older Scots texts 76
3.3.3 A ‘valuable Library’ 77
3.4 Drafting the Dictionary 78
3.4.1 Compilation notes 78
3.4.2 The Ruddiman annotations 79
Contents vii
4 ‘The Pulse of the Public’: promotionand publication 85
4.1 A potentialmerger 85
4.2 Circulation of the Proposal 88
4.2.1 Promoting the Dictionary 88
4.2.2 The Proposal 94
4.2.3 The subscription scheme 99
4.2.4 Subscribers 99
4.3 Preparing for publication 101
4.3.1 ‘Fifteen months hard labour’ 101
4.3.2 Printing and production 104
4.4 Publication of the Dictionary 106
4.4.1 Distribution 106
4.4.2 Chasing subscribers 109
5 Inside the Dictionary 113
5.1 Overview 113
5.2 Preliminaries 114
5.2.1 The 1808 Preface 114
5.2.2 The Dissertation on the Origin of the Scottish
Language 117
5.3 Lexicographic features 120
5.3.1 Historical principles 120
5.3.2 Headword form and order 123
5.3.3 Incorporation of glossaries 124
5.3.4 Selection of authorities 129
5.3.5 Spoken usage 141
5.3.6 Dialect coverage 144
5.3.7 Other features 149
5.4 Critical reception 157
5.5 Summary 162
6 Revision and collaboration: the Abridgement and
Supplement 163
6.1 A start on the Supplement 163
6.2 The Abridgement of 1818 166
viii Contents
6.3 Compiling the Supplement 171
6.3.1 New sources 171
6.3.2 Dialect glossaries 173
6.3.3 Newspapers and periodicals 176
6.4 Jamieson’s contributors 178
6.4.1 Known contributors 178
6.4.2 Unknown contributors 180
6.4.3 The Shortreeds 182
6.4.4 George Kinloch 185
6.4.5 Sir Robert Liston: the ‘humble coadjutor’ 190
6.5 Sir Walter Scott’s contributions to the Supplement 195
6.5.1 Overview 195
6.5.2 Scott’s manuscript annotations 197
6.6 Printing and publication 202
6.7 The Supplement manuscript 206
6.8 Jamieson’sunpublished Additions 212
7 After Jamieson 215
7.1 Overview 215
7.2 Posthumous editions of theDictionary 216
7.2.1 Tait and Johnstone: the second edition 216
7.2.2 Longmuir and Donaldson: the third edition 219
7.2.3 The last edition 224
7.2.4 Unofficial supplements 224
7.3 Jamieson as a lexicographic source 226
7.3.1 Dictionaries based on Jamieson 226
7.3.2 Jamieson in the OED and EDD 230
7.3.3 Jamieson in the SND 232
7.4 Jamieson in the twentieth century 234
7.5 Future research 237
Appendix A: Chronology of events in Jamieson’s life 238
Appendix B: Publication history of the Dictionary and
Supplement 240
Appendix C: Sir Walter Scott’s contributions to the
Supplement 243
Bibliography 255
Index 271
Illustrations
FrontispiecePortraitofRev.JohnJamiesonbyWilliamYellowlees ii
1.1 FormerSecessionKirkinNicolsonStreet,Edinburgh 8
1.2 BuccleuchPlace,Edinburgh,showingJamieson’s
formerhouse 11
3.1 PagefromJamieson’scopyofRuddiman’sglossary 80
4.1 FirstpageofJamieson’sProposalof1802 95
4.2 Page7ofJamieson’sProposal,showingsampleentries 96
5.1 TitlepageoftheDictionary(1808),Scott’scopy 112
6.1 Jamieson’slistofqueriesfortheShortreeds 184
6.2 ListofqueriessenttoGeorgeKinloch 188
6.3 PagefromScott’scopyoftheDictionary,showing
annotations 198
6.4 TypicalpageoftheSupplementMS 207
6.5 SupplementslipcontributedbyCharlesKirkpatrickSharpe 211