The Devil's Dictionary

What's a good Puritan have to do with words like "sodomitrie" and "buggerie"? Scott McLemee, a former winner of the NBCC's Nona Balakian prize for criticism, explains the confluence in his column this week for insidehighered. com, where he discusses "The First English Dictionary," compiled by Robert Cawdrey. An advance man for Samuel Johnson who composed his tome during Elizabethan times, Cawdrey lacked Johnson's press agent and sank into obscurity. Now the University of Chicago Press is trying to set things right with an edition that helps track the history of a people and its language...



-- Ellen Heltzel, NBCC board member