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vocabulary (miscellaneous)

LHMP entry

It might seem odd to cover this article after covering Turton’s book (Before the Word Was Queer) that functionally includes material about Anne Lister, but “The Lexicographical Lesbian” goes into a bit more detail. And besides which, I’m a completist.

This section discusses other dictionaries contemporary with or subsequent to the publication of the OED, and the ways in which they were indebted to it. This debt included reproducing some of its deficiencies.

This chapter focuses on the philosophy, history, and development of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) specifically. The creation of the OED was a monumental project, delivered alphabetically in fascicles (separate installments of a larger work, meant to be bound into a single volume when complete). The fascicles were released beginning in the 1880s and completed in 1928, followed by a supplement in 1933 to catch up with developments in the previous half century.

This chapter compares the dearth of entries for f/f sexuality in general dictionaries in the 1750-1850 period with the wealth of discussion on those topics in medical dictionaries. The appearance of medical dictionaries as a genre aligned with an explosion of vernacular publishing in the health field in the 16-17th centuries. These were aimed not only at non-specialists, but at health workers outside the academic elite—people who didn’t have access to Latin literature. The publishing establishment operated as gatekeepers in terms of what material got published and how it was presented.

This chapter opens discussing how dictionaries explicitly presented themselves as censoring inappropriate language when aimed at an audience that included women. This sort of comment shows up as early as the later 18th century. Even the nature of what was being censored is censored, with explanations that it is aimed at “inelegant” words, rather than objectionable or obscene ones.

This chapter begins exploring the assertion that languages bear an essential relationship to the nature of their speakers, and that deviations of the language from this essential quality can be attributed to foreign influences. This idea appears in the introduction to a 1676 dictionary. The naturalization of words is paralleled to the naturalization of citizens and must be a strongly policed. Ethnic stereotypes are ascribed to languages along with the people who speak them. English, of course, is assumed to be neutral, moderate, and free from excess.

This chapter looks at how words are defined and cited, and the semantic frameworks they’re associated with, using “sodomy” and “buggery” as the working examples. [Note: my summary is going to give undue attention to discussions relevant to women.]

The book begins with an anecdote about the OED updating its entry for “marriage” when the (British) marriage equality act was passed, and how this was framed in the press as participating in a “change of definition”. This is followed by an anecdote from a slander case in 1942, which argued that “lesbian” could not be slanderous, as it was (incorrectly) asserted that the word didn’t exist in English when the relevant law was passed--an argument based on citations in the OED entry for “lesbian”, which was not included in the first edition published in 1908.

The article is centered around a relationship between two women in Japan who planned a double suicide to address what seemed like unresolvable problems in their lives. Both survived the suicide attempt and appear to have continued their relationship more successfully afterward. This study also focuses on the various popular culture and media responses to the suicide attempt, to “love suicides” in general, and to the question of women’s same-sex relationships in Japanese culture.

Amer begins by tackling the Whorfian-tinged assertion that the lack of a specific terminology for lesbianism in medieval Europe contributed to a lack of modern scholarship about same-sex desire between women in that era, by noting that the existence of a diverse and specific vocabulary for the topic in medieval Arabic (sahq, sihaqa, musahaqat, al-nisa’, sahiqa) hasn’t resulted in a vibrant field of study. This is particularly disappointing given the significant surviving literature on the topic.

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