I was one of those kids who would read the dictionary for fun. I always enjoyed opening it up and looking for one word I knew, and then that would usually lead to a cascade of finding weird new words. So, when looking for something to write a blog post about this week, I happily stumbled across Murray’s A New English Dictionary. The entire title is A New English dictionary on historical principles; founded mainly on the materials collected by the Philological Society, and it was published as 10 volumes somewhere in 1888-1928, making it about as old as the University. Though its binding is a little beat up, the inside is still in excellent condition (or at least it was in volume 7, the one I looked through). I was hunting for the word “lugubrious” just because it popped into my head, and through that I learned the fun word “lug-loaf,” which has no definition, just an example sentence that reads “Shee had little reason to take a Cullian lug-loafe, milke slop slaue When she may have a Lawyer.” Let me know if that clears up anything for you.
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By Morgan Ford