日志
百科全书 之 废物利用
热度 23 ||
2020-4-20
周末的时候在辅导小不点儿和她的小朋友们如何写作文。其中的一个review checklist上，要求作文的每一个段落里面，都要有adjectives来增加细节。常言说，细节决定成败，所以非常重要。
突然小不点儿问，什么是adjective？
噢，adjective就是形容词，就是。。。。就是。。。。算啦，还是看百科全书上是怎么说的吧。因为旁边的书架上，装满了不止一套英文版的百科全书，都是50多年前学校老师们忽悠小朋友们的灵丹妙药，趋之若鹜，可现在都被当做了垃圾，门前冷落鞍马稀了。
所谓盛世修典，那先看创刊于第一次世界大战之后（1922年）的Compton's Encyclopedia吧，这是大英百科全书（A Britannica Publication）旗下的产品，号称是百科全书中首开图文并茂记录的，共26本，平均每个英文字母一本。该套百科全书第一本（A）的结尾词条是安徽（Anhui or Anhwei），很亲切的。
按照字母的顺序查了一下，竟然没有adjective这个词！
那就看创刊于第二次世界大战之后（1950年）Collier's Encyclopedia。是美国麦克米兰（Macmillan）公司旗下的产品，号称是学术气氛最浓的百科全书，共24本。虽然比Compton's Encyclopedia少了两卷，可是篇幅增加了50%。
也是第一卷，中间倒是有adjective这个词条，可是没有内容，直接被踢了皮球（See under Grammer in Everyday Use）！！
那就直接看号称有252年历史的大英百科全书（Encyclopædia Britannica）好啦，书架上是被阉割后（1929年）面向北美市场的1962年版的24卷本，篇幅比Compton's Encyclopedia增加了一倍，以致于第24卷是专门的索引卷。可是不幸的很，家里的书架上，单单没有了第一卷。
天无绝人之路，从大英百科全书的索引卷中查Adjective， 可知大英百科全书第一卷中，也没有adjective这个词条，而是被当做是后娘（Granmar）养的一个分支词条，列在了第十卷中！！！
那么1829年创刊于美国本土的全美百科全书（Encyclopædia Americana）怎么样呢？书架上是1989年版的30卷本，号称是世界所有百科全书中科技含量最高的。篇幅较大，装订精美，和大英百科全书不相上下，所以最后的第三十卷，也是专门的索引卷。
打开这套百科全书的第一卷第168页，整整的一篇，有介绍有例句，有语法分类，有历史沿革有参考文献，没有一点儿废话，都是关于“adjective”的。
所谓见微知著，全美百科全书这牛皮，还真他妈不是吹出来的！！！！
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发表评论 评论 (13 个评论)
- 回复 席琳
- 买贵了
。我的全是免费的，只有一套是例外。那套62年的大英百科全书，连书架都是原配，恰到好处，古色古香。邻居搬家，扔在外面，没人捡。看到后，马上搬回来。Goodwill店里，经常看到全套或半套此类百科全书卖，大概也就是5毛钱一本的样子。
- 回复 席琳
- 八十年代以前，各类百科全书和世界知识丛书（WORLDBOOK），还有一套哈佛经典（Harvard Classics）是美国中产阶级家庭里的标配，经常有书商挨门挨户的推销，家里有中小学生的，一般都会买一套或两套这样的工具书，放在家里，既实用又充当门面。现在是信息化时代，字典百科全书连同相册镜框等传统媒介统统都被扫地出门了。
colin1992: 这些百科全书好贵的
- 回复 席琳
- 网上看来的：
My parents had a Funk and Wagnall's, and I was always aware of its shortcomings when researching something. The articles were frankly pretty shallow, sometimes shorter than the target length of my paper.
I have a 1989 Britannica set. I can't say anything about World Book, having never used it, but frankly the Britannica is in a class of its own. It's essentially two encyclopedias: the "micro" and the "macro." The first covering as many topics as they could manage, and the second being in-depth articles about specific subjects. "Rome" for example is a ~25,000 word, 18 page article in the Macropedia section.
As I recall, I paid about $1500 for it in 1991, and that was discounted because it was two years old. That was a really major expenditure when I was 26, but something I felt was worthwhile.
Today, much of the information in the micropedia is available online, but it's still quite difficult to find the kind of depth you see in the macropedia.
- 回复 席琳
- 也是网上看来的，怀念百科全书的：
If you aren't about, I don't know, maybe 30, this may not make any sense.
Long ago, before the Project Guttenberg, Wikipedia, or event the internet, the world's information was kept in a bound volume, called an encyclopedia.
If reading was your thing, an encyclopedia was a joy. Impressive photographs and articles on more things than a small town boy could ever imagine.
The public library had several sets of encyclopedias, as did the public schools, though they were usually well worn and some of the most frequently used pages were sometimes damaged or missing. Nonetheless, one could read about anything from body parts to Mayan ruins to creatures of the deep. I remember it fondly.
If you were well off you might even have a set of World Book Encyclopedias of your own. I seem to recall that they were rather expensive. We did not own a set. But I had a friend, Richard, who had his own set of World Book Encyclopedias in his bedroom. Because they were not abused like the ones in the libraries, his still had the visible overlays for the article on the human bodies and the other neat stuff that had long since gotten damaged in the set in the library.
But my parents didn't want us to be encyclopedia-less. Funk and Wagnall (remember Laugh-In from the 60s- "Look that up in your Funk and Wagnall") also produced an encyclopedia which they marketed in the local A&P. They introduced a new volume every week or two and you bought one as you were buying groceries. While they certainly weren't as spiffy as the World Book, they still had lots of information and were easier on the pocketbook than the World Book with their color overlays. So we had a set of Funk and Wagnalls. And I spent many hours reading and researching stuff in them.
What brought all this up? We are painting the den and needed to move the small bookcase that my wife and I built many years ago. So we took everything out of it in so we could move it. And I saw that in that bookcase is a set of 1966 Funk and Wagnall encyclopedias.
There is really no reason to put them back in the bookcase. They are over 40 years old and no one has looked at them in years. I don't know what I will do with them. They weren't a high end set when they were new, and they are so dated that I can't imagine that anyone would want them so I will probably just get rid of them. I guess that makes me a bit sad.
Time marches on.
- 回复 席琳
- Long before Google, there was the encyclopedia - In an age before Google, parents pinned hopes for their children’s future onto promises made on their doorsteps by encyclopedia salesmen.
Denis Boyles, the author of a history of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, recalled recently for a Tribune reporter the encyclopedias of his youth: “I was taught in high school that you started (a report) with the Britannica to find out how much you didn’t know,” he said. “Then you (turned to the more accessible) Americana, World Book and Funk & Wagnalls encyclopedias until you could fathom at least enough to get (writing).”