Taking One Page of the Unabridged (II): Page 313

At the end of the last essay I said I wanted to compare the list of 94 OED terms from "cafe" to "cake" and the 130 or so Unabridged terms in the same category to determine why the Unabridged has so many more terms than the OED. I will compare the two dictionaries now. If I put a "yes" in parenthesis, it means that this word/phrase also occurs in the Unabridged. "No," obviously, means the opposite.

Let's thus begin with the OED words. The first twenty are: cafeteria (yes), cafetiere (no), caff (yes), caffa (yes), caffe (yes), caffe espresso (no), caffeic (no--the Unabridged has caffeic acid), caffeinated (yes), caffeine (yes), caffeism (no), caffe latte (no), caffe macchiato (no), caffiaceous (no), caffle (yes), caffling (no), caffoy or cafoy (no), Caffrarian (no), caffre (no, the Unabridged has caffre cat or caffer cat, which it lists as a variant of Kaffir cat), cafila (yes), cafone (no).

Results So Far

Out of the first twenty words in the OED corresponding to the words on p. 313 of the Unabridged, we have only eight in common. That is, most of the words in the two dictionaries people would normally think of as the definitive complete dictionaries in English don't match! We truly don't know what English language is. Only eight of the first twenty words are shared in common. This is a truly remarkable fact, in my estimation.

Now let's begin from the Unabridged, to see which words it has which might or might not appear in the OED. We have cafe curtain (no), cafenet or cafenet (no), cafe noir (no), cafe society (no), cafetal (no), cafeteria (finally, we get a YES, on a word that a 3rd grade dictionary would have), cafeteria car (no), cafetorium (no), caff (yes), caffa (yes), caffe (yes), caffeate (no), caffeic acid (no), caffeine (duh, yes), caffeine citrate (no), caffeinic (no), caffeol or caffeone (no), caffre or caffre, usually a variant of Kaffir (yes--caffre), caffetannin (no), caffle (yes), caffre cat or caffer cat (no, though there is caffre), cafila (yes), caftan (yes, of course).

Thus, if we begin with the Unabridged first and compare the words on page 313 to the words in the OED, we have 14 of the first 23 words that don't match, while only nine of the words match. Thus, we have less than 50% overlap between the two dictionaries, at least on this randomly selected page. Sure gives you lots of confidence, doesn't it, on the nature of the English language?

If these two dictionaries were all you had to go on, you might think that they really described different, albeit related, languages. They probably are as similar as Spanish and Italian. One could conclude, then, that the OED and the Unabridged gives us two different languages. They only "agree" on words that are so common and so present in everyday use that you don't really need a dictionary to define them.

A "Fun" Digression--Ending with a Political Comment

I stated at the beginning of last essay that studying both dictionaries made me, alternatively, frustrated and longing. Now that I have looked at them more closely, I think I am getting depressed. But, in order to handle the depression that results, without taking on an application of St. John's wort (Hypericum perforatum), I need to take a "break" and look at a few of the "person-centered" words on p. 313 of the Unabridged and corresponding pages in the OED.

The OED has Caffrarian (not in the Unabridged). It defines this word as: "of, pertaining to, or characteristic of Caffraria." Oops, I think I need to know more. So, I looked up the second definition of caffre, and I found, "In ordinary Eng. use: A member of a South African race of Blacks belonging to the great Bantu family, and living in the north-east of the Republic of South Africa, in an area formerly known as Caffraria or Caffre-land." Now I see why this has probably fallen out of use in the Unabridged, a more "American-centric" dictionary [even though the very obscure word grimthorpe, an obviously British word, is in both the OED and Unabridged. It is capitalized in the former but not in the latter]. By the way, the first definition of caffre in the OED is very useful: "a word meaning 'infidel,' applied by the Arabs to all non-Muslims." Oops, then the OED tells us that the word is "More accurately kafir."

Gee thanks. That is really helpful. The more accurate term is tucked in at the end of the definition. So, let's look up kafir. Actually the word is capitalized in the OED, but it appears under the entry Kaffir. Really, really helpful. But then, as if to try to comfort us, it says, "prop. Kafir." It just seems that you can't list it properly. After all, why would you dare to list a word properly?

The Unabridged reflects a similar confusion. It has no entry under caffre, but it does have one under kaffir or kafir. It mentions that these words can also be rendered caffer or caffre. Whereas the OED listed it under the "c's" and "k's," however, the Unabridged listed it only under the "k's."

This problem arises because we dont yet know how to render a Semitic "kuph" into English. Is it a "c" or a "k?" It can also be a "Q" in some instances, as when we try to spell the word "Koran" or "Qu'ran" in English. Someday this will all be standardized; possibly it will become standardized when all our children have to learn Arabic because we will be taken over by Osama bin Laden and his minions. This won't happen on the Republican watch. That is why we have to keep voting for Republicans--even if we feel they don't always tell us the truth, that they make the rich much richer and the middle class slightly more prosperous, that they might be tempted to erode our liberties (for our own good, of course), and they want to proclaim that America is a Christian nation.

Conclusion

Well, I didn't even get to my favorite two of the "personal" words on p. 313 in this essay: cahenslyism and cagoulard. I guess I will have to wait until the next essay to talk about them. Sorry I work so slowly, but someone has to raise the question of what the language is...

2807