How to Read/Chapter 2

by John Barrett Kerfoot

Layout 2

CHAPTER II

MUCKRAKING THE DICTIONARY
I

Looking up at my calendar as I begin this chapter, I notice that I have an engagement to-night. I am going to the theater.

I also notice that it is the first of April. And I wonder, in passing, whether this is a coincidence, or whether there is also a divinity that guides our beginnings, rough-hew them as we will. At any rate, the day is well lit upon. To talk of the dictionary on April Fools' Day is as appropriate as to wear green on the seventeenth of March.

However, let us get back to my engagement.

The play we are going to see has made a great hit. We had to get tickets weeks in advance. The house will be packed to the roof.

Suppose I jump up on my seat in the middle of the third act and shout "Fire!!"

What does your imagination suggest as the result?

Panic?

Stampede?

Women trampled?

Clothes torn from men's backs?

Five or six hundred well-fed, well-dressed, outwardly kindly folk, suddenly swept by a brain-storm of herd-horror; and then, quiet, and a few still bodies sprawled in the empty aisles?

Probably.

And what would have been responsible for all this?

Terror. Instant, unreasoned, irresistible terror.

And what would have caused this terror?

An idea.

And what would have detonated this idea, like a bomb, in five hundred minds at once?

A shouted word.

Surely, this must be a very terrible word? A word with a most immemorial, definite, terror-striking meaning?

II

But hold on a minute.

It happens that Jim Sedgworth dined with me last night.

You don't know Jim. But he is one of those big, blue-eyed, absent-minded, intensely-in-earnest fellows, whose greatest joy in life is to pounce on an idea and worry it. Jim treats an idea exactly as though he were a bull pup and it were the corner of a sofa cushion.

Well, when we'd finished dinner, and I had given Jim a cigar, and he'd cut the end off of it; I saw, by the way he searched his pockets, and by the puzzled frown between his eyes as he talked (he had just gotten an idea by the ear and was beginning to growl at it), that he had left his matches at home. So I caught the butler's eye; and he, presently, brought a little alcohol lamp and stood at Jim's side with it.

But Jim had his idea by the throat by then and did n't notice.

"Fire, Sir," said the man.

Jim paid no attention. And yet, curiously enough, I noticed that his hand stopped groping in his pockets.

"Fire, Sir," said the butler, again, a little louder.

Jim did n't seem to notice, even yet. He did n't start. He did n't look round and say, "Oh—yes—thank you." He went right on talking. He gave his idea a final shake. He disdainfully tossed the carcass of it on to the table between us, as who should say, "Resuscitate that if you can." And then, his eyes fixed on mine, he leaned a little sideways toward the lamp. The frown disappeared from his forehead. With his eyes still on mine, he stuck the end of his cigar into the little blue flame. And he puffed.

Now what caused Jim to stop groping for matches?

What gradually wiped the perplexed frown from his face?

What caused him, while his real attention was fixed on his argument and his eyes on me, to avail himself of the proffered lamp?

Let us put it that these things were the result of a slowly dawning sense of a need about to be supplied.

And what caused this sense of approaching satisfaction?

The gradual taking form of a vague idea in the back of his mind.

And what was it that prompted the slow generation of this idea in his half-consciousness?

A repeated word.

Surely, this must be a most reassuring word? A word with an age-old, ingratiating, domestic significance?

III

But hold on again!

It is the same word!

Or, are we mixing things up?

Are these, perhaps, two different words that happen to be spelled alike?

Or are they the same word, used in two different senses?

Let us consult the dictionary.

IV

On second thought, however, and while the dictionary is being gotten down from the shelf for us, let me tell you what it is that I want to show you.

We made, in the last chapter, some rather startling discoveries.

We discovered, for instance, that authors do not, because they cannot, tell us stories or put new ideas into our heads. That they merely guide and prompt us, with varying skill and effectiveness, in telling stories, and in building up ideas, for ourselves.

We discovered that books are, in reality, nothing but more-or-less elaborate scenarios—descriptions of the stories or syntheses that their authors want us to stage in our minds; and that the only material we have to draw upon for the "producing" of these scenarios is our own experience—the stored products of the living we have done.

In fact, we discovered that reading, instead of being the comparatively passive and essentially receptive process that we are in the habit of considering it, is in reality an intensely personal and creative activity.

We are, we found, astonishingly "on our own" when we read a book.

But we have not, even yet, pushed our investigations in this regard quite home.

We have not, even yet, discovered how much "on our own" we really are when we read.

For story scenarios are written in words. And while we have discovered where we get our stories, we have yet to discover where we get our word-meanings.

We have discovered that no man can tell us a story.

We have yet to realize that no man can tell us the meaning of a word.

V

"What!" you are, of course, going to exclaim at this point, "and how, then, about the dictionary?"

Allow me to be as shocking as possible. The dictionary is the very last place in which you will find this information.

However, don't think for a moment that I expect you to take my word for this. I quite realize that you do not believe me. But fortunately, and just in the nick of time, here comes the dictionary to speak for itself.

Here is Funk and Wagnall's New Standard Dictionary of the English Language. Let us resume our interrupted investigation by seeing what it has to tell us.

VI

We were wanting to know whether the word "fire" as supposedly shouted in the theater, and the word "fire" as spoken to Jim Sedgworth by the butler, were perhaps two different words that happened to be spelled alike.

The dictionary tells us that the word "fire" only occurs twice in English; once as a verb, and once as a noun. And as both of these words, as used, are nouns, they must necessarily be the same word, used in different senses.

At least one would suppose so.

Let us see, however, what the dictionary has to say. The dictionary gives fourteen or fifteen different meanings for the noun "fire" and divides these into six groups. Here they are:—

Fire.	(1)	The evolution of heat and light by combustion; also, the combustion thus manifested, especially the flame, or the fuel as burning.
	(2)	The discharge of firearms; firing.
	(3)	One or more sparks, especially as emitted by iron or stone when struck by a substance hard enough to tear it.
	(4)	Any light, luster, or flash resembling fire.
	(5)	Liveliness or intensity of thought, feeling, or action; ardor; passion; vivacity.
	(6)	Any raging evil; a severe affliction; sore trial; as, the fires of persecution.

Well?

This does n't seem to help us much, does it?

There is manifestly but one of these meanings—but one of these fourteen or fifteen meanings divided into six groups—that in any remotest degree connects itself with my supposed cry in the theater.

This is the last meaning in the first group:—

the combustion thus manifested, especially
the flame, or the fuel as burning.

And there is but one of these meanings—but one of these fourteen or fifteen meanings divided into six groups that in any remotest degree connects itself with the butler's proffer of the cigar-lighter.

Namely, the last meaning in the first group:—

the combustion thus manifested, especially
the flame, or the fuel as burning.

But, these are not different meanings!

These are the same meaning!

And not only that.

This "dictionary meaning" does not, in either case, indicate in the remotest degree the meaning actually conveyed by the word as used.

Jim Sedgworth certainly could n't have gotten his meaning of the word as used by the butler from the dictionary.

The theater audience to-night, should I shout that word from my seat during the third act, certainly would n't get its meaning of it from the dictionary.

Evidently, if we have nowhere to go for our word-meanings except to the dictionary, we are up a tree.

VII

As a matter of fact, however, we are merely up against two very interesting questions:

(1) Where do we get the meanings of words?

(2) What is the function of the dictionary?

Let us tackle the latter question first. And, to that end, let us begin by setting down, as clearly as we can, the meanings actually conveyed by the word "fire" as used in these two cases.

Let us put it that the meaning conveyed to an audience by the word "Fire!" shouted in a theater would be something like this:—

The frightful Theater-fire-death is upon us! We
are trapped! Every man for himself!

And let us put it that the meaning actually conveyed to Jim Sedgworth by "Fire, Sir," as spoken by the butler, was something like this:—

Sir, give over groping and frowning; the slight
fire-service that you require is here at your
elbow.

If, now that we have them before us, we compare these two meanings; if we examine them carefully, but with an eye to resemblances rather than to differences; we shall find that they have one, and only one, element in common. In each the fire-notion is present.

And if we now turn back to that vague "dictionary meaning" of the noun "fire," which, of all the "dictionary meanings" given, we found to be the only one remotely connectible with either of these cases, and equally connectible with each of them; namely,—

the combustion thus manifested, especially
the flame, or the fuel as burning,—

we shall discover that it is, in reality, nothing but a definition of this fire-notion.

Suppose, now, with this discovery in our minds, we reëxamine the six groups of meanings given by the dictionary for the noun "fire."

We shall find that they can be described, and summed up, as follows:—

(1)	The evolution of heat and light by combustion; also the combustion thus manifested, especially the flame, or the fuel as burning.		Definitions of the general fire-notion.
(2)	The discharge of firearms; firing.		A definition of the shooting-iron fire-notion.
(3)	One or more sparks, especially as emitted by iron or stone when struck by a substance hard enough to tear it.		A definition of the flint-and-steel, or horseshoe-and-cobble fire-notion.
(4)	Any light, luster, or flash resembling fire.		Definitions of the looks-like-fire-to-the-eye notion.
(5)	Liveliness or intensity of thought, feeling or action; ardor; passion; vivacity.		Definitions of the makes you-think-of-fire notion.
(6)	Any raging evil; a severe affliction; sore trial; as, the fires of persecution.		Definitions of the makes you-think-of the-effect-of-fire notion.

In fine, we have hit upon the function of the dictionary; which is, not to give us the definite meanings of words as used, but to define the root-ideas; the type-notions; the lowest common denominators of grouped meanings; for which words, by long usage and slow development, have come to stand.

And this, as we shall see more clearly in a few moments, cannot, in the nature of things, be otherwise. For words, in themselves,—words, that is to say, without context,—do not possess definite meanings. They merely stand for generalized ideas. They are magic formulæ—rubbed lamps—"Open Sesames!"—by which we command the presence of "notions" in one another's minds.

VIII

It is possible that at first blush you doubt my soundness in making this statement. If so, I can refer you to the dictionary itself. For the dictionary knows this fact perfectly,—or, rather, partially,—but, for reasons of its own, does n't force it on our notice. It prints it, in very small type, in a dark corner where you will be unlikely to come across it; but where, if accused of not knowing its own business, it could triumphantly point it out. On page 2730 of the New Standard Dictionary, tucked away among some other comments on the word "word," appears the following:—

In human language, all words, except proper names and some exclamations, are signs of generalized ideas, called notions.

Please bear this statement of the dictionary's in mind. We will have occasion to refer to it later on.

IX

And now for our other question: where do we get the meanings of words as actually used?

We have already, as it happens, stumbled on the answer to this question also. We get the meanings of words, as actually used, from the context.

The matter, however, is not quite so simple as this sounds. Let us look at it a bit more closely.

Suppose I say to you, "I am going down town to get a down pillow."

My meaning, because of the context, is perfectly clear to you in spite of the two "downs."

Or you would probably say so.

But, is it?

Do you, as a matter of fact, know what "down town" means to me? Do I know what it means to you? Do we understand the same thing, all the way through, by "down pillow"? Or does "down pillow," possibly, mean to you an aid to luxurious ease? To me, as it happens, it means a squashy nuisance that is forever shedding white fuzz on the back of my coat.

In short, are the other words the whole of the context?

Let us see for ourselves.

Let us return for a moment to the crowded theater.

Here we had a single word, shouted by itself. Whence do these five hundred people get, at the same instant, the same meaning from this word? Not from the verbal context, since there is none. They get it from the material context:—from the big, crowded house, and the small, distant exits; from their common knowledge of the horrors of theater fires; from the context, in short, of the shared situation.

But even this is not all.

Up to a certain point—to the exact point up to which the situation is really shared—these people get a practically identical meaning from the shouted word. But each of them gets, also, a more definite meaning yet; a personal meaning.

The little lady in G 34 gets the meaning that two babies at home will be motherless if she does n't somehow get out before the rush.

The big man in B, next seat but one to the aisle, gets the meaning that he must manhandle the flabby fellow at his right in order to get started while the going is good.

The fireman near the main exit gets the meaning that now at last he is "on duty" in deadly earnest.

And so on, and so forth, through five hundred variations.

In fact, the personal character and the private concerns of every man and woman in that theater are, for him or her self but for no one else, a part of the context.

We ourselves, our endowments and derivations, our past performances and present entanglements, in fine, the sum total of living that we have stored in us, are always and always, forever and ever, a part of the context from which we derive the meaning of every word that we hear spoken or read in print.

X

"Learning to read," therefore, does not only mean increasing our stored experience, physical, mental, and spiritual; and learning to draw on these stores more and more skillfully for the "producing" of our authors' scenarios. It means, also, enlarging our "personal contexts"; developing our responsiveness to "verbal contexts"; and learning to draw more and more discriminatingly on these two sources for the word-meanings in which we interpret the directions that our successive partners, the authors, issue to us.

XI

This, dramatically considered, would appear to be the proper place to ring down the curtain on this chapter. But before doing this I want to be certain that you realize the absolute universality of the explanation above set forth.

I chose the word "fire" to use as an illustration because it seemed convenient. But I might have chosen any one of the 349,999 other words in the New Standard Dictionary. For they all, without exception, stand, in their respective degrees, for "generalized ideas called notions"; and it is invariably from the contexts—verbal, situational, personal—that we derive the specific meanings which, in actual use, we individually assign to them.

But I have more than a suspicion that you are still inclined to question this. You are, I dare swear, bursting at this very moment with suggested exceptions. You are, I am certain, feeling around with the fingers of your mind for words—words that you know must exist—whose meanings are singular and absolute.

Well, there are no such words.

Not in practice at any rate.

I defy you to find one, inside the dictionary or out.

For they exist only in theory. And, even there, they are hard birds to get hold of. The only way to catch one is to put salt on its tail—the intellectual salt called metaphysics.

XII

"But," you are doubtless wanting to remind me, "the dictionary itself expressly says that 'In human language, all words, except proper names and some exclamations, are signs of generalized ideas called notions.'"

Exactly. But, let me remind you in turn, we are engaged in muckraking the dictionary. And the dictionary is either less practically perspicacious than it thinks itself, or less intellectually honest than it pretends to be, in making this statement.

It either fails to realize that it is talking common sense in the unitalicized portion of the quoted sentence, and metaphysics in the italicized portion; or else it deliberately abandons, in practice, the double standard that it sets up in theory. For no one can detect the alleged difference of status between these classes of words by examining the text of the dictionary.

Let us try for ourselves.

Let us look up a proper name in the New Standard Dictionary (where proper names are listed, in ordinary alphabetical order, in the text); and then take the next, ordinary, word in the column; and compare the two. Suppose we take "Aristotle." The next word after "Aristotle" is "aristotype." Here is what the dictionary says about them:—

Aristotle. A Greek philosopher (384-322 в.с.); pupil of Plato; teacher of Alexander the Great.

Aristotype. Phot. A print made on paper treated as with mixed collodion and gelatin, capable of receiving a high polish.

Well? How about it? Now that you have read what the dictionary has to say, is "aristotype" a "notion" to you and "Aristotle" not?

Or, as a matter of cold, practical fact, is not your notion of "Aristotle" just as generalized as it was before consulting the dictionary, while your notion of "aristotype" has become a trifle more specific than formerly?

XIII

But perhaps you think that Aristotle is not fair selection. He has been dead such a long time that our notions of him are naturally hazy.

Let us get into the twentieth century: into the lime-light.

Let us put it that proper names run all the way from "John Doe," which stands, by definition, for a generalized idea, to "Teddy Roosevelt," which stands, let us say, for

A type of human being of which, "more's the pity," or "thank God!" (according to our personal contexts) there happens to be but one.

Dr. Woods Hutchinson pointed out, some years ago, that "night air" was the only kind of air we have to breathe—at night. I would respectfully point out that a generalized idea is the only idea we have, either of Mr. Aristotle or Mr. Roosevelt, and that "Aristotle" and "Teddy Roosevelt" stand for them.

Words, after all, are but push-buttons. When we press them, they call up notions in other minds. When I push the button "Teddy," it calls up a notion of Teddy in your mind. It does n't call up my notion of him. It does n't call up his notion of himself. It calls up that generalization which, at the moment, stands for your notion of him.

XIV

So much, then, for proper names. As for "some exclamations," the dictionary defines "O" as "an exclamation of lamentation."

It defines "Oh" as "a natural ejaculation evoked by sudden surprise."

It defines "Ah" as "an exclamation expressing various emotions according"—in short, according to the context.

And so on through the list. In short, it defines these words as standing for ideas that are merely a little more generalized than the others. One can, for instance, imagine a fat and very self-satisfied dictionary exclaiming, "О!" or "Oh!!" or "Pshaw!" or even "Ouch!" as these little mistakes are pointed out to it.

You will find it an amusing game and a helpful exercise to take a list of words,—any words, like "spirituality," "toward," "humble," "angrily," "diphthong," "potato," "Aristophanes," "Humph!"—and satisfy yourself in each case of the relevancy of the facts set forth.

You will find that they are all—nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, proper names, exclamations, what-not—you will find that they are all "signs" alike; all signals, rubbed lamps, mental push-buttons.

You will find that, as any one of them is presented to you, a "notion" springs up in your mind.

You will find that, while these notions differ in degree of vagueness (your "Humph!" notion will be vaguer than your "Aristophanes" notion, which, in turn, will be vaguer than your "potato" notion), each of them will prove, on examination, to be a "generalized idea."

And you will find, finally, that each of these ideas is a generalization made from your own stored-up experience.