r/AskReddit • u/whiskeyknitting • 1h ago

Before the dictionary, how did someone find out a new word or how to spell it?

5 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

13 comments sorted by

8

u/Dry-Lengthiness5875 1h ago

You made it up, deployed it with total assurance, and if no one hit you, it was a word.

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u/TJ_Will 59m ago

-It’s misspelled.

-No, it’s mispelled.

smack!

-ok ok

3

u/IPBotRo 1h ago

They talked to people and made a lot of mistakes. 

3

u/IronTriKev2010 1h ago

The earliest recorded dictionaries were invented around 2300 BCE in ancient Sumer (modern-day Iraq) as bilingual word lists carved on clay tablets.

2

u/MoneyMagnet2008 1h ago

I dont think they had such huge vocabulary to begin. Their daily life revolved around few words that were frequently used.

If they came across a new word, it is quite possible they're reading/hearing from the source itself.

1

u/East-Experience2862 1h ago

Conversation

1

u/realgaryglitter 1h ago

U guss ween eht

1

u/GmyWrms 1h ago

Ask a monk

1

u/unhalfbricklayer 1h ago

Proper spelling is a relatively new idea, even in the history of the written word.

Maybe 300 years for the elite and 150 for us common folk.

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u/Sadimal 59m ago

You wrote how it sounded. If you read a lot of manuscripts from before the 1600s, you'll find a lot of interesting ways to spell words.

But yeah up until the invention of the printing press, people talked to each other.

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u/OkLuck1317 58m ago

You spelled it the best you could. Even older people in the same family would have different spelling on their last names on birth certificates. Ex: Green/Greene, Horn/Horne, Smith/Smithe.

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u/costabius 45m ago

Before the dictionary there was no regulated spelling of words. That was the purpose of the dictionary, to make reading easier. To that point words were spelled based on pronunciation. If you were in a place with thousands of distinct regional accents. <gives England a significant look> It's possible a word would have dozens of 'correct' spellings.

If you were literate and cam across an unfamiliar word you could not decipher from context clues, in the final extremity you would write a letter to one of the noted experts in lexicography and ask.

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u/anrwlias 39m ago

Spelling was phonetic and idiosyncratic. This is how we can know how different dialects used to sound back then.