Sheridan

Peter and Ann gave us a wonderful present for Christmas 2012: a 2nd edition of Thomas Sheridan's Dictionary of the English Language, carefully restored and rebound. 

Sheridan (Swift’s godson) originally published the dictionary in 1780; this second edition was published a year after his death in 1789, while the French Revolution raged across the Channel. 

Interestingly, it has a section of advice to Foreigners who want to learn to speak the English language properly - his advice is (from our perspective) quite idiosyncratic and a long way from how we teach learners of English as a foreign language to speak nowadays but fascinating! The first word we looked up was Tess' favourite word of the day, solipsistic: and found it to be a word that was (according to Sheridan) not part of the English vocabulary at the time.

Thank you, Peter and Ann, for this wonderful 223-year-old present! It will give us many an hour of vocabularian pleasure!