Questões de Concursos

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It happens that the publication of this edition of the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary comes 250 years after the appearance of the first comprehensive dictionary of the English language, compiled by Samuel Johnson. Much has changed since then. The English that Johnson described in 1755 was relatively well defined, still essentially the national property of the British. Since then, it has dispersed and diversified, has been adopted and adapted as an international means of communication by communities all over the globe. English is now the name given to an immensely diverse variety of different usages. This obviously poses a problem of selection for the dictionary maker: which words are to be included in a dictionary, and thus granted recognition as more centrally or essentially English than the words that are left out?

Johnson did not have to deal with such diversity, but he too was exercised with this question. In his Plan of an English Dictionary, published in 1747, he considers which words it is proper to include in his dictionary; whether ‘terms of particular professions’, for example, were eligible, particularly since many of them had been derived from other languages. ‘Of such words,’ he says, ‘all are not equally to be considered as parts of our language, for some of them are naturalized and incorporated, but others still continue aliens...’. Which words are deemed to be sufficiently naturalized or incorporated to count as ‘parts of our language’, ‘real’ or proper English, and thus worthy of inclusion in a dictionary of the language, remains, of course, a controversial matter. Interestingly enough, even for Johnson the status of a word in the language was not the only, nor indeed the most important consideration. For being alien did not itself disqualify words from inclusion; in a remark which has considerable current resonance he adds: ‘some seem necessary to be retained, because the purchaser of the dictionary will expect to find them’. And, crucially, the expectations that people have of a dictionary are based on what they want to use it for. What Johnson says of his own dictionary would apply very aptly to The Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary (OALD): ‘The value of a work must be estimated by its use: It is not enough that a dictionary delights the critic, unless at the same time it instructs the learner...’.

(Widdowson, H. Hornby, A.S. 2010. Adaptado)

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Existem as pessoas bibliófilas (do grego biblíon, “livro”, e philos, “amigo”): quase sempre intelectuais, adoram ter livros raros, edições únicas, várias traduções dos mesmos textos. Reúnem coleções catalogadas que podem ser utilíssimas para pesquisadores. Existem as pessoas acumuladoras: adoram ter uma enorme quantidade de objetos, incluindo livros. Via de regra, o termo já designa uma patologia: pessoas que acumulam itens porque simplesmente não conseguem jogá-los fora. E, portanto, são também incapazes de catalogar, cuidar, organizar, até mesmo limpar seus objetos.

E existimos nós, pobres mortais que não temos nem a seriedade e o senso de propósito das bibliófilas, e nem a patologia descontrolada das acumuladoras, mas que, sim, vamos comprando livros pela vida e, na semana seguinte, antes de termos lido qualquer uma das compras da anterior, já estamos comprando novos, que vão se acumulando sem serem lidos.

Para o escritor Roberto Calasso, autor de Como organizar uma biblioteca, bibliotecas deveriam ser organizadas de forma aleatória e lúdica, um lugar para o usuário se perder e, quem sabe, encontrar um livro ainda melhor quando se está buscando por outro apenas adequado. Mais importante, toda boa biblioteca é comprada no presente, mas para ser útil no futuro. “Nada tira o fascínio de ter nas mãos — na hora — um livro de cuja necessidade não se sabia até um momento antes”, escreve ele.

(Alex Castro. ‘Tsundoku’, a arte de acumular livros. Revista Quatro Cinco Um. Julho de 2024. Adaptado)