SAMUEL JOHNSON defined his profession as that of a "harmless drudge". Yet it has been well served by lexicographers writing entertainingly about their work. Two good examples are Kory Stamper waxing lyrical about the job itself and Jesse Sheidlower, in "The F-Word", about the ubiquitous English swear word. But lexicography really is patient, slow and yes, sometimes tedious work. Trying to find citations here or there that show what some rare word means or, perhaps even harder, revising the endless definitions for all-purpose words that run for page after page in a big dictionary is not for those of an impatient bent.
展开▼
机译：萨缪尔·约翰逊将他的职业定义为“无害的苦力”。但是，词典编辑很乐于为他们的工作写有趣的文章。两个很好的例子是Kory Stamper对这份工作本身进行了抒情处理，而Jesse Sheidlower在《 The F-Word》中谈到了普遍存在的英语宣誓词。但是词典编纂确实是耐心的，缓慢的，是的，有时是乏味的工作。试图在这里或那里找到表明某些稀有单词含义的引用，或者甚至更难地修改在大型词典中逐页运行的通用单词的无穷定义，而不是那些不耐烦的人。
展开▼
