第9章 LETTER TO MR A.J.FOWLER

March 3, 1935

Dear Mr Fowler,

Replying to your letter of January 18, for the shortness of which you apologized, I sit down to write one for the length of which I flatter myself that I do not need to apologize; for, as you must be aware, I am now as much interested in you and your work as I have always been in your brother and his work.And this also accounts for the rather personal, if not altogether presumptuous, tone in which I write.

I am very glad to learn that you have found my Letters to a Friend very interesting and that you will often re-read it.I am perhaps the only Chinese young man who has ever published his private correspondence in English, and no doubt mine[1] cannot be said to have been published in vain[2], if only it has been read and found "very interesting"[3] by a scholar of your qualifications.

Many thanks for sending a copy of Dr Coulton's memoir of your brother, which I have read with a great deal of gusto.I feel compelled, however, to raise the following few questions:

1.How is it that page 2 is marked "100", page 3 marked "101", etc.?[4]

2.How is it that while your birthday is mentioned(on page 126), your brother's is not mentioned?

3.How is it that while the wording of a memorial tablet to your brother's wife and that of your brother's friend Tower's epitaph[5] are given, your brother's own epitaph is not given?

4.How is it that nothing is said about your brother's work on The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary?

5.What does "A.O.D.[6]" in the facsimile[7] of your brother's letter to Dr Chapman stand for[8]? I have never heard of an Oxford dictionary the name of which begins with the letter A.

Because I am interested in your brother as a man as well as as an author, I wonder whether you could manage[9] to let me have a copy of each of these books:

More Popular Fallacies[10]

Si Mihi[11]

Between Boy and Man

If Wishes Were Horses[12]

Rhymes of Darby to Joan

All these books are mentioned in Dr Coulton's book, but I am sure that they are not to be had[13] here in China.In return for your kindness, I would gladly help you in regard to any word of Chinese origin about which you might desire information in compiling The Quarto Oxford Dictionary.

I am very anxious to know how far you have gone on your work on this dictionary.(I asked you the same question in my last[14]; your silence[15] on it in your letter suggests that you did not have my letter before you when you wrote, and this suggestion may perhaps be regarded as being borne out[16] by the fact that you wrote on the envelope "Hertz C.Kê" instead of "Hertz C.K.Kê".)Constant use of C.O.D.and P.O.D.enables me to make the following observations,[17] which, whatever you may think of them, I hope you will find pertinent enough for a lexicographer's consideration.

Both C.O.D.and P.O.D.have glaring omissions, if omissions can ever be glaring, of senses and uses that the average student of English knows or is supposed to know.Examples:agreed as used in "All are agreed", can as used in "He cannot be over fifty", have as used in "I am glad to have you write to me in English", earn as in "His work earned him a good reputation".This is perhaps due to the fact that both dictionaries are two-man compilations[18].If you are working on The Quarto Oxford Dictionary single-handed[19], I think that you will have all the more reason to guard against such notable omissions.

Both C.O.D.and P.O.D.omit some very common idioms, such as "join up", meaning enlist, especially those which you Englishmen like to call Americanism.It is my opinion that while it is very desirable to label Americanisms as Americanisms, it is far from[20] good to omit an idiom on no other ground than that[21] it is not usually used in England, though common enough in America.Your brothers say in their preface to the first edition of C.O.D.:"… we admit colloquial, facetious,[22] slang,[23] and vulgar expressions with freedom merely attaching a cautionary label[24], when a well-established usage of this kind is omitted, it is not because we consider it beneath the dignity of lexicography to record it, but because, not being recorded in the dictionaries from which our word-list is necessarily compiled, it has escaped our notice[25]…".Well, please pardon me for saying, but I have to say, that a lexicographer does not seem to be justified in confining his words and idioms to a few dictionaries.Read through an ordinary newspaper, an ordinary magazine, or an ordinary 1934 or 1935 novel, and you will find a number of idioms that you of course know and perhaps the "general reader" of current literature knows, but which are not recorded in C.O.D.or P.O.D.May I suggest that you treat the reading of newspapers, magazines, and even third-rate[26] novels, as part of the work of a lexicographer?

I trust that you will by no means accuse me of disparaging[27] either of the two dictionaries, which, as I have told you before, I hold in very high esteem.

Yours sincerely,

Hertz C.K.Kê

注释

[1]mine = my private correspondence

[2]in vain:无益

[3]“very interesting”:此系来信中语

[4]How is it that...?:何以……？

[5]epitaph:墓铭

[6]A.O.D.:据A.J.Fowler来函云，即指The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary，盖此书原拟名Abridged Oxford Dictionary也

[7]facsimile:真迹

[8]stand for:代表

[9]manage:设法

[10]Popular Fallacies:《普通之谬说》

[11]Si Mihi:《我若有》（拉丁文）

[12]If Wishes Were Horses:《若愿望为马》（成语“If horses were horses, beggars would ride”之前半语）

[13]are not to be had:买不到

[14]my last:我之前信

[15]silence:未提及

[16]borne out:证明

[17]observations:评语

[18]two-man compilations:二人合编之书

[19]single-handed:独自

[20]far from:极不

[21]on no other ground than that...:仅因……

[22]facetious:诙谐的

[23]slang:俚语

[24]cautionary label:警告之标识（示读者以不可随处应用也）

[25]escaped our notice:未被我侪注意

[26]third-rate:劣等的

[27]disparaging:轻视