Dictionary daydreams

All dictionaries start in the imagination. One could sit at a screen and key in a list of words at random, defining them on impulse rather than in some principled way. Usually, however, one comes up with a plan or a specimen that reflects principles of selection and principles of entry-level treatment. Usually, the dictionary in mind has a purpose. Maybe it proposes to cover the vocabulary of a given language broadly — the unabridged dictionary — or maybe it appeals to college students and their teachers — the college dictionary — or maybe it offers support to workers — the desk dictionary. Or, maybe, as an expression of enthusiasm for modern Greek language and culture, it’s a dictionary of modern Greek slang, as imagined by Steve A. Demakopoulos.

Demakopoulos is no stranger to dedicated readers of this blog (see the post from May 19, 2023). I had only barely registered his existence before we began to unpack the Kripke Collection, in a list of “charter members” of the Dictionary Society of North America, of which Madeline was one of the twenty-five founding members. The collection includes a copy of his book, Do You Speak Greek? (2000) inscribed to Madeline — Demakopolous collected dictionaries and considered Madeline his mentor — and his copy of an important seventeenth-century bilingual dictionary by John Florio and Giovanni Torriano (1659). The collection also includes a specimen of “A Dictionary of Modern Greek Slang and Colloquialisms.” An economist by day, Demakopolous tried his hand at lexicography. Some people draw or paint, some write poems, and still others write dictionaries as an aesthetic practice.

The title is tentative, we’re told on a dissertation-style cover-page. Fields are typed and then filled in with pencil:

Pages	1-34
Date	7/16/80
Reader and Advisor	M. Kripke
From word	ʼαβάζι
To word	ʼαιλοφλε ʹρουσος
Number of entries	294

One easily calculates that the average number of entries per typescript page is about ten, but some words have enough senses or require enough idiomatic explanation to claim more space than the others.

As far as I know, Demakopoulos never took a course in lexicography, but he did know dozens of academic and commercial lexicographers through the Dictionary Society; at DSNA conferences, he listened to professionals talk about their plans. He may have read around in the bibliography of lexicography but, like Madeline, he was an astute reader of dictionaries, an amateur who understood lexicographical methods by induction and, it turns out, to great effect in his specimen. Here are some samples of his work:

αρουτύρως      adj.      1. Not dipped in butter, without butter   2. (met.) without charm or elegance, gauche, tactless

ʼαλήτης ʼαβουτήρωτος   a slob

ʼαγαμία   ή      1. Celibacy, unmarried life, bachelorhood   2. (slang) not having sexual intercourse, lack of “nookie”   (syn. ναλογερίνι)

ʼαγάνωτος        adj.      1. unplated, untinned, unpolished   2. (slang) insignificant, worthless   (phr.) ʼαγανωτο μοΰτρο   (syn) τευενές   3. (met.) shameless, impudent, brazen   ʼγάνωτος ναί μπάσταρδος   a shameless bastard  (syn.) χωρίς τσίπα

ʼαγγειόυπασμα   τό   1. vessel breaker   2. (met.) wise guy, punk, “ball buster”

ʼαγνλίστα   ή   1. shepherd’s crook   2. (met.) unkempt, dirty person, especially one tall and humped back

These entries represent the specimen well: seduction, sex/celibacy, crime, weakness or spinelessness, repulsiveness — these are staple categories of the slang lexicon of any language.

The entries occasionally exhibit a sense of humor, something one doesn’t often find in professionally compiled dictionaries — “ball buster” is a perfect extension of one definition, “lack of ‘nookie’” more forced, rhetorically less credible, but it’s good to see a lexicographer having fun. Otherwise, the amateur is quite professional:

• There are cross references.
• There are references to related forms in other languages (cognates), especially Turkish and Italian, which provide etymological information, too.
• There are restrictive labels, like “syn.” (synonym), “prov.” (proverb), “region.” (regionalism), and “synech.” (synecdoche).

That last avoids confusion between synonyms and synecdoches, but the abbreviation is incorrect. Demakopoulos also struggled with consistency among abbreviations. Several of the 294 words included in the specimen originated in Venetian, which is sometimes “Venet.,” but at other times “Ven.” or “Vent.” It would have made no difference which abbreviation he chose, and such are lexicography’s fine-tunings, the little things that make a difference, rules on their behalf laid down in editorial manuals. And we needn’t be overly critical — it isn’t a finished dictionary. It is, however, an unusually accomplished specimen of a still hypothetical dictionary.

Demakopoulos gave Madeline his exercise in dictionary-making for her pleasure, for advice and affirmation. We don’t know whether Madeline gave him a green light. We do know that he never finished what he started so well. But the specimen itself is collectible, not just because of the personal connection, but because you could fill a library with dictionary plans and specimens, and many of them would be the only record of what some aspiring lexicographer dreamed to do.

The value of an unbound stack of paper like this one may challenge the casual observer, but those who do the research will see it right away. It has an autobiographical/ biographical value with regard to Steve A. Demakopoulos, who frankly gets more interesting as we unpack the Kripke Collection, and with regard to Madeline’s career as a collector and curator. When someone decides to write a dictionary of Modern Greek slang, looks for guidance on how to do it, and then finds the Demakopoulos specimen in the Lilly Library catalogue, that someone can take its implicit advice.

What lexicographers propose but don’t complete is historically important, too. Sometimes, the history is cultural: What dictionaries did people think we needed? How does a specimen explain a culture through words and lexicographical method? Sometimes, it’s a matter of purely lexicographical history: Which dictionaries were conceived but never made and why? Which plans and specimens were false starts in projects that ended up producing a dictionary after all? It’s a trope of this blog, I realize, but the richness of Madeline’s collection lies, not only in the fancy and expensive dictionaries, but also in mundane lexicography and sometimes in hopeful lexicography, the lexicography of daydreams.