Talk - Henry Hitchings

Whenever Henry Hitchings told anyone he was writing a book about ‘Dr Johnson’s Dictionary’, the first thing they would say was, ‘Is it true that it doesn’t have the word 'sausage' in it?’ “Actually it does”, he tells me, when I chat to him about his forthcoming talk on the subject at Pelham House. “But lots of people immediately think of that Blackadder episode - which is hilarious but sadly not quite accurate.” There are plenty of mundane things that he did forget to include, though, like ‘blonde’, I learn, but also bizarrely specific things that ended up going in. “Dr Johnson’s working methods were completely different from previous dictionary compilers”, says Hitchings. “Instead of starting off making a list of words, he read everything he could get his hands on and wrote words down as he went. So if he read ‘otter’ say, he’d think ‘right I’d better put that in.’”
As a consequence a few rather unusual words were included after he had been reading some particularly scientific literature. “Retromingency is one of my favourite words. Which posterity has probably proved unnecessary. It means pissing backwards - apparently hares do it”. ‘Have the meanings of many words changed?’ “Oh yes, lots. Off the top of my head - there’s ‘Fireman’, which used to mean ‘man of passion’; another is ‘Penthouse’ which meant something like ‘a room overhanging a street’ - not nearly as exclusive as the current meaning”, he pauses, delivering a well-placed plug. “In fact there’s a whole chapter on this in my book.” ER