Quote: although a lexicographer attempts to embalm a language, words and phrases change their meaning

Quotation

... we laugh at the elixir that promises to prolong life to a thousand years; and with equal justice may the lexicographer be derided, who being able to produce no example of a nation that has preserved their words and phrases from mutability, shall imagine that his dictionary can embalm his language, and secure it from corruption and decay, that it is in his power to change sublunary nature, and clear the world at once from folly, vanity and affectation.   Google-1   Google-2

Published before 1923

Related Topics

Topic: dictionary for natural language (41 items)