Project Gutenberg's A Dictionary of Austral English, by Edward Morris

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

Title: A Dictionary of Austral English

Author: Edward Morris

Release Date: February 3, 2009 [EBook #27977]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A DICTIONARY OF AUSTRAL ENGLISH ***

Produced by Geoffrey Cowling

AUSTRAL ENGLISH

A DICTIONARY OF AUSTRALASIAN WORDS, PHRASES AND USAGES

with those Aboriginal-Australian and Maori words which have
become incorporated in the language and the commoner scientific
words that have had their origin in Australasia

by Edward E. Morris M.A., Oxon.

Professor of English, French and German Languages and
Literatures in the University of Melbourne.

1898

INTRODUCTION

CONTENTS

I. ORIGIN OF THE WORK
First undertaken to help O.E.D.
The Standard Dictionary

II. TITLE AND SCOPE OF THE BOOK
Not a Slang Dictionary

III. SOURCES OF NEW WORDS:--
1. Altered English
2. Words quite new to the language:--
(a) Aboriginal Australian
(b) Maori

IV. THE LAW OF HOBSON-JOBSON
Is Austral English a corruption?

V. CLASSIFICATION OF WORDS

VI. QUOTATIONS. THEIR PURPOSE

VII. BOOKS USED AS AUTHORITIES

VIII.SCIENTIFIC WORDS

IX. ASSISTANCE RECEIVED

X. ABBREVIATIONS:--
1. Of Scientific Names
2. General

I. ORIGIN OF THE WORK.

About a generation ago Mr. Matthew Arnold twitted our nation
with the fact that "the journeyman work of literature" was much
better done in France--the books of reference, the biographical
dictionaries, and the translations from the classics. He did
not especially mention dictionaries of the language, because he
was speaking in praise of academies, and, as far as France is
concerned, the great achievement in that line is Littre and not
the Academy's Dictionary. But the reproach has now been rolled
away--<i>nous avons change tout cela</i>--and in every branch
to which Arnold alluded our journeyman work is quite equal to
anything in France.

It is generally allowed that a vast improvement has taken place
in translations, whether prose or verse. From quarter