Making Use of the
Dictionary and Thesaurus
If you are serious about improving your standard of writing,
a dictionary and a thesaurus are useful books to have beside
you.
Using the dictionary
The dictionary contains a vast amount of information and it
can be a fascinating experience to browse through it if you
have time.
The first dictionaries
The first major dictionary was produced by Dr Samuel
Johnson in 1755. There had been earlier ones but they were
very rudimentary. The first ones were produced by monks in
the fifteenth century. Latin was the traditional language of
the mediaeval church and the monks tried to find English
equivalents for Latin words. Dr Johnson had a reputation as
a man of learning and, unlike some of his contemporaries in
the eighteenth century, he recognised that language is con-
stantly changing. Today, with the advent of new technology
and the consequent increase of new words, dictionaries have
to be constantly updated.
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