The Oxford dictionary of Quotations enjoys the reputation of a standard reference book, an essential item for every library, a basic tool for research, a constant companion for dipping, a publication without a rival. Why is it so bad?
The problem is partly one of false expectations. Reference books claim an authority which they do not deserve, as is known by everyone who has ever worked on one. The Oxford dictionaries, books and companions make even more special claims, which are seldom challenged.
The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations (ODQ) has had four and a half editions over more than half a century. The first edition, which appeared in 1941, was strong on the literary and religious sides and already old-fashioned. The second, which appeared in 1953, was a cautious revision, still rather narrow and conservative. The third, which appeared in 1979, was a radical revision, adding much new material but subtracting much of the old, so that it supplemented rather than superseded its predecessor. The fourth, which appeared in 1992, was ano-ther radical revision. It was bigger than ever (over 1,000 pages with 17,500 quotations from 2,500 authors), better researched and better referenced, well produced and low priced. Now it has reappeared in a so-called "revised fourth edition" with a 13-page appendix contain-ing "Sayings of the 1990s," "Popular Misquotations" and "Slogans." More extravagant claims than usual are made for it, but they are as false as ever.
ODQ fails the essential test of any reference book, by being neither comprehensive nor reliable. The result is that far too many obscure non-quotations have been included and far too many obvious quotations have been excluded. In attempting to remain authoritative and respectable, ODQ still has hundreds of old passages from standard sources which were once but are no longer quoted; at the same time, in attempting to become contemporary and correct, ODQ now has hundreds of passages from recent sources which have never been and never will be quoted. (The 200-odd new items in the appendix are almost all pointless.) Valuable space has also been wasted by the addition of descriptions of authors-William Shakespeare as "English playwright" (although more than 70 quotations come from the poems)-and of the mostly otiose originals of many foreign quotations-not only Latin and Greek or French and German, but Italian and Spanish, Norwegian and Swedish, even Anglo-Saxon and Russian (with inevitable errors in both texts and translations). If all the unnecessary things were removed, there would be room for all the necessary things omitted.
A small sample reveals the whole pattern (no, that is not in). Begin at the beginning (yes, that is in-inaccurately). On the first page there are 14 items. Five are essential, five are pointless, and three are dubious. The last is one which everyone knows though nearly everyone gets wrong: "Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely." This is given correctly-although referred to the works of Creighton, who received the letter, rather than of Acton, who wrote it-but without the crucial next sentence: "Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority..." This sets the style of the book.
There are nine quotations from Marx, six good, two bad, and one imperfect-"Religion... is the opium of the people," given without the cumulative force of the rest of the sentence. One of two from Engels is "The state is not abolished, it withers away," without the crucial previous sentence; the other one is bad. Trotsky does not have "substitution" or "permanent revolution" or "fellow travellers." There is no Kro-potkin (there is actually, but it is wrongly attributed), one bad Emma Goldman, and two from Bakunin (one of which is wrongly attributed). There are nine quotations from William Morris, but not "a counting house on a cinder heap"; 11 from Adam Smith, but not the "invisible hand." There is no Carlyle or Hazlitt on the "fourth estate." Coverage of more recent politics is weak. Other weak areas are philosophy and science, and even weaker ones are art and music.
All right, ODQ is mainly a literary reference book. But it omits far too many basic quotations from literary works-Amis's "Nice things are nicer than nasty things," Arnold's "eternal note of sadness" and "power not ourselves," Bunyan's "Doubting Castle" and "Set down my name," Carroll's "The Snark was a Boojum," Chaucer's "Let Austin have his swink to him reserved," Chekhov's "To Moscow!", Dante's "il miglior fabbro" and so on.
It would be a pity to correct all the errors, because it is such fun watching their progress through successive editions-"The greatest happiness of the greatest number" (rightly credited to Jeremy Bentham, although still not to the right work) or "The religion of humanity" (rightly credited to Tom Paine, although now to the wrong work, and not to Comte as well).
When will something be done about it? The credits name 25 members of a "project team," nine "specialist advisers," and four "additional contributors"-bullshit baffles brains (not in). It is time the ODQ was as good as it claims.
The oxford dictionary of quotations, fourth edition
revised by Angela Partington
Oxford University Press 1996 ?25
