This chapter provides an overview of the process of conceiving, researching, editing, and publishing dictionaries, both synchronic (or commercial) and historical. Discussed methods and tools for making dictionaries range from traditional hand-copying of citations from print books and paper-and-pencil editing to sophisticated electronic technologies like databases, corpora, concordances, and networked editing software. The chapter shows how editorial conception of the needs and sophistication of the end user largely determines the dictionary’s length and headword list as well as the format, defining style, and level of detail in entries. The chapter goes on to examine how the pressures of commercial publishing, with its looming deadlines and pressing need to recoup investment by profits from sales, affect the scope of dictionaries and the amount of time editors can devote to a project, and how these pressures differ from those affecting longer-trajectory, typically grant-funded historical dictionaries. Assessing the consequent challenges for managing and motivating people working in these two very different situations, what may be the most important factor in a project’s success, concludes the survey of dictionary editing.

Compilations of quotations and of proverbs have a long history, with some significant differences. Dictionaries of quotations as we know them today are a more recent phenomenon, and belong in the area of popular reference. The full range of dictionaries of proverbs encompasses a scholarly approach to language analysis, as well as more popular productions. This chapter, focusing on collections available today, looks at what the form of such publications can tell us about the primary value of such a resource to readers, as well as what publishers and website originators believe readers want.

Robert Lowell’s influence has been pervasive. Two features of his writing, in particular, have been widely adopted and adapted: photographic imagery and the practice of quoting. Lowell’s photographic realism is the central trope in his autobiographical writing, and it became a lingua franca of the confessional and post-confessional poem in general. The influence appears in such later poets as Sylvia Plath, Robert Hayden, Li-Young Lee, Yusef Komunyakaa, Sharon Olds, and Frank Bidart. Lowell’s practice of inserting quoted texts and conversational tidbits by others within his own imaginative structures is a second highly influential feature of his writing. His method of sampling influenced or aligns with the work of such later poets as Bidart, Henri Cole, and Claudia Rankine. Lowell’s use of mimetic repetition (the photograph, the quote) continue to resonate in the way we write poetry and read it.

Nonius Marcellus’ intellectual tendencies, contemporary concerns and treatment of the Roman literary past are the subject of this study, which contends that the author’s predilections and intended readership often guided his selection of quotations, affected his presentation of them, and, consequently, shaped our reception of early Latin we know principally or exclusively from the De compendiosa doctrina. Nonius was selecting not merely ‘old words’ regardless of their valence, but more precisely those old words that could be incorporated with minimal accommodation into the speech patterns of fourth-century North Africa. This means that his collection of Latinity often has as much to do with imperial, provincial, and formal public speech as it does with republican Latin literary styles; that Nonius was more attuned to the philosophical, intellectual, theological, and cultural implications of the texts that he was excerpting than has yet been recognised; and that he probably bequeathed us a collection of literary Latin distorted by his own interests and concerns, and by his readers’ particular needs.

In this chapter, we address the aspects of style and presentation that students most commonly encounter in preparing their essays for submission. What may seem like minor details of writing, like ellipses, italics and quotation marks, are actually aspects of clarity. They explain in shorthand form the nature of your material and how you are using it. As with the referencing conventions we looked at in the previous chapter, common style conventions are understood by other academic readers and are part of engaging in an academic conversation. The chapter is organised A–Z by topic so that you can locate the information you need quickly and easily when you encounter a style query in the course of your writing. However, the unique circumstances of your own writing assignments means that you will occasionally have to make judgements about how to present your information.

Early eighteenth-century dictionaries departed from the hard-word tradition to include common words for a wider and expanding audience. Bailey s dictionaries (1721, 1730) provided comprehensive coverage of information of all kinds, not only linguistic, but were found lacking in clarity and lexicographic sophistication. Increasing desire for an authoritative standard for the language prompted Johnson s work on his dictionary of 1755. In this dictionary, he raised the standards of lexicography in regard to definitions (especially multiple ones), phrasal verbs, and other aspects, including the illustration of usage through the use of written authorities; however, he abandoned his hopes and intentions of fixing the language (prescriptivism) in the midst of his work, turning to a more descriptive model of English written usage. The change in method and approach occurred after the failure of his attempts to order literary and other written material he consulted into pre-ordained structures of definition. Concerns for proper speaking and spelling became louder throughout the century, because of the rapidly increasing and increasingly mobile population, as well as the Act of Union of 1707, uniting England and Scotland. Dictionary makers increasingly included guides to pronunciation and spelling in reaction to these concerns, and numerous pronouncing dictionaries appeared from mid-century onwards.

This chapter examines passages in Hebrews where the Spirit is portrayed as the speaker of Scripture quotations (Heb 3:7–4:11; 10:11–18). Due to previous skepticism about the Spirit’s role in Hebrews, this chapter also argues that the Spirit is a speaker in the same way as the Father and Son and that the author uses his speech to develop a thoroughly distinct divine character. In Hebrews 3-4, potentially the longest pneumatological discourse in the NT, the Spirit encourages the addressees to avoid the error of the wilderness generation and press on towards rest. In Hebrews 10, the Spirit “testifies” to the benefits of the new covenant - especially forgiveness. In contrast to the Father and Son, the Spirit’s conversation partner is “us.”

This chapter summarizes the arguments of previous chapters.

This chapter proposes that the author uses an ancient exegetical technique known as “prosopological exegesis.” This method was common in early Christianity, but is not often traced as far back as the NT. After establishing the author’s use, the chapter shows how this method developed out of Greco-Roman rhetorical training as well as literary criticism and also has resonances with Jewish reading strategies as well. Since this method was used by early Christian writers, such as Tertullian, to support a doctrine of the Trinity, this chapter also discusses the extent to which this is true of Hebrews. Finally, the chapter surveys previous literature on speech, or “the word of God,” in Hebrews.

This chapter shows how the patterns of speech outlined in the previous chapters support proposals for a tripartite structure of Hebrews; however, these patterns are especially prevalent in the first two sections, but break down some in the third. This chapter discusses the spoken quotations in the third section of Hebrews (10:19–13:25) and demonstrates how the author develops his motifs from the previous sections. This section also shows how the author’s spoken quotations relate to the opening prologue in which the Father speaks “to us” through the Son, even though no quoted speech from the Son is ever directed to the addressees in Hebrews.

This chapter examines passages in Hebrews where the Father or God is portrayed as the speaker of Scripture quotations (Heb 1:5–13; 5:1–10; 7:1–28; 8:1–13). In Hebrews 1, the Father speaks 7 quotations to the Son or to/about the angels. These quotations show the Son’s superiority. In Hebrews 5, the quotations show how the Son is called to be a priest and how that is linked to his Sonship. In Hebrews 7, the author’s important quotation of Ps 110:4 establishes Jesus as a high priest in the likeness of Melchizedek. Finally, in Hebrews 8, the Father speaks and establishes a “new covenant.” In most instances, a pattern emerges where the Father speaks to the Son and confers authority upon him. These speeches are then “overheard” by the addressees.