[B-Greek] Barclay Newman's Revised Dictionary
Carl Conrad
cwconrad2 at mac.com
Mon Oct 11 06:33:05 EDT 2010
On Oct 10, 2010, at 5:43 PM, Andrew Suttles wrote:
>>
>> CWC wrote> "... these are precisely the
>> reasons why I prefer Cunliffe or Autenrieth over Middle Liddell, Danker
>> over
>> Thayer, and my own best recollection over Barclay Newman revised or
>> unrevised."
>
>
> Dr. Conrad -
>
> Perhaps you should preface 'curmudgeon-y' statements like this with "Back in
> my day we ..." and then end your statements with "and that's the way we
> liked it!"
>
> ha...ha...
>
> Chucklingly yours,
Well, in fact it's the young whippersnapper, FWSFOROS MARKOS, who
prefers the Victorian standbys, the Middle Liddell (1887) and Thayer
(1880). I really do prefer BDAG (2000). On the other hand, I really do
love Georg Autenrieth's Homeric Dictionary of 1895 seems to me a
splendid and still valuable reference for one reading the polyphloisterous
bard. Most endearing about it are the woodcuts that show the details
of doorlatches and shields and the like. Reading Homer, quite apart from
the enjoyment of the magnificent verse, involves a sort of study of the
archeology of the Greek language; Autenrieth's dictionary is a linguistic
explorer's tool, and one of the few dictionaries I know that are fun just to
browse through.
The revised Barclay Newman may well be an improvement over the
original, but James Spinti's description makes it appear that the chief
improvement is the addition of etymological clues to what a worrd
might have meant in a previous incarnation. My complaint about the
work is its dearth of real information it is essentially a list of
lemmas and simple glosses. "My own best recollection" is more a
matter of recognition based upon repeatedly seeing words in varied
contexts over the course of many years. The most useful information
any decent lexicon can provide is an accurate notation of nuanced
usages with citations of illustrative texts. Newman's work -- the
older one, at least -- provides little more information about a Greek
word than what you'll find under the word in an interlinear. I
think it's the same people who prefer Newman's and interlinears,
greenhorns still wet behind the ears, not curmudgeons in their
dotage like myself (snort, harumph ... )
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)
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