Henry Bradley

Henry Bradley

Henry Bradley (1845 – 1923) was a British philologist and lexicographer of the Victorian era who succeeded James Murray as senior editor of the "Oxford English Dictionary".

Bradley came to Murray’s attention in February 1884 when he reviewed the first fascicle of the Dictionary, A-Ant, in the "Academy", a weekly literary magazine run by J. S. Cotton in London. Bradley’s review praised the clear format and simple design of the Dictionary and its economy in using quotations, but it also challenged Murray’s etymology, and this caused quite a stir. At the time, Bradley was an unknown freelance writer with no official academic credentials, yet his essay, showing a close knowledge of several languages, contained criticism that none of Murray’s colleagues had been able to provide. "Anemone" could not correctly be rendered as “daughter of the wind," for example, because the Greek suffix was not “exclusively patronymic,” and "alpaca" was not Arabic in origin, as Murray had written, but more likely Spanish.

Bradley’s triumph was that both his praise and his criticism were fair and well-tempered; he was admiring without being sycophantic and corrective without being hostile. Recognizing that he had found a worthy peer who could prove invaluable in creating the Dictionary, Murray hired Bradley, first as an assistant editor, then as joint senior editor.

He has been overshadowed by James Murray, and it must be conceded that Bradley was a slower, less durable worker, frequently ill. However, he remains a noteworthy linguistic scholar, largely self-taught. Much like Murray, Bradley had humble beginnings—as a farmer’s son in Nottinghamshire—but by adolescence he was already steeped in several languages of Classical learning, and he is supposed to have learned Russian in only 14 days. Simon Winchester records that some of Bradley’s childhood notebooks, discovered by a friend, contained

“…lists of words peculiar to the Pentateuch or Isaiah, Hebrew singletons, the form of the verb "to be" in Algerine, Arabic, bardic and cuneiform lettering, Arabisms and Chaldaisms in the New Testament, with vocabularies that imply he was reading Homer, Virgil, Sallust and the Hebrew Old Testament at the same time. In another group the notes pass from the life of Antar ben Toofail by ‘Admar’ (apparently of the age of Haroun Arrashid) to the rules of Latin verse, Hakluyt and Hebrew accents, whereupon follow notes on Sir William Hamilton and Dugald Stewart and a translation of parts of Aeschylus’ "Prometheus"…”

Remarkably precocious as this erudition was, Bradley had found no public outlet for it before writing his column in the "Academy". For a long time, he was employed as a simple corresponding clerk for a cutlery firm in Sheffield, and he was already 39 years old when he began editing the Dictionary. Soon afterward he began to get the recognition he deserved, receiving honorary degrees from Oxford and Heidelberg and becoming a fellow of Magdalen College and the British Academy. He also served as President of London’s Philological Society, which still exists, and helped found the Society for Pure English, along with the renowned Henry Watson Fowler and others.

It was for the S.P.E. that Bradley wrote his last piece, an introduction to “Tract No. XIV: On the Terms Briton, British, Britisher.” He wrote the first three paragraphs, suffered a stroke, and died two days later. The piece was finished by Robert Bridges and published along with Fowler’s “Preposition at End” and a brief obituary. Short papers such as this one—another example being “On the Relations Between Spoken and Written Language,” read before the International Historical Congress in 1919—are available in The "Collected Papers of Henry Bradley." Longer works include a history entitled "The Goths" (1887) and "The Making of English" (1904).

Because it does not showcase his linguistic brilliance, "The Goths" misses the essence of Bradley. The truly interesting book is "The Making of English", the culmination of a philological life. It assesses change in English and the reasons for its borrowings from other tongues down through history, all without resorting to the obscure sets of symbols so unhappily relied on by specialized linguistics. In his Author’s Preface, Bradley addresses the book “to educated readers unversed in philology,” and he succeeds in popularizing his specialty and making it readable rather than resorting to jargon, which he considered an affront to plain English.

Arguably, there would be far less popular interest in Bradley today if he had not been included in Simon Winchester’s history "The Meaning of Everything", which honors the fascinating society of scholars who worked on the "O.E.D". Winchester’s book treats Bradley at greater length than any of the other histories in which he has appeared, and has revived a stronger curiosity about him than others have managed to do. Those researching James Murray and Henry Watson Fowler will also find Bradley mentioned in "Caught in the Web of Words", by Elisabeth Murray, James’s granddaughter, and in "The Warden of English", by Jenny McMorris.

References

Henry Bradley, "The Making of English", 1904.

Jenny McMorris, "The Warden of English: The Life of H.W. Fowler", 2001. ISBN 0-19-866254-8.

K.M. Elisabeth Murray, "Caught in the Web of Words: James A.H. Murray and the Oxford English Dictionary", 1977. ISBN 0-300-02131-3.

Simon Winchester, "The Meaning of Everything", 2003. ISBN 0-19-517500-X.

External links

* [http://oed.com/about/editors/bradley.html "Oxford English Dictionary" website entry for Henry Bradley]


Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Нужно решить контрольную?

Look at other dictionaries:

  • Henry Bradley — Unzueta (* Lima, 1940 ) es un destacado piloto de automovilismo peruano. Contenido 1 Biografía 2 Palmarés 3 Véase también 4 Enlaces exte …   Wikipedia Español

  • Henry Bradley — Henry Bradley, né en 1845 et mort en 1923, est un philologue et lexicographe britannique qui succéda à James Murray à la tête de l Oxford English Dictionnary. Largement autodidacte, il est remarqué par Murray pour ses critiques justifiées du… …   Wikipédia en Français

  • Henry Bradley Plant — (27 octobre 1819 23 juin 1899) est un homme d affaires ayant fait sa fortune en Floride aux États Unis en investissant dans le domaine du transport et en particulier dans le secteur ferroviaire. Son réseau …   Wikipédia en Français

  • Henry Bradley (pilote) — Henry Bradley Unzueta Jr., né en 1940 à Lima, est un ancien pilote de rallyes péruvien. Biographie Óvalo de la cultura tayacajina, sur le route Huancayo Ayacucho du rallye des Incas …   Wikipédia en Français

  • Henry Bradley Plant — (* 27. Oktober 1819 in Branford, Connecticut; † 23. Juni 1899) war ein US amerikanischer Eisenbahnmagnat und Pionier der touristischen Erschließung des westlichen Florida. Plant stand von seiner Familie her das Studium an einer ang …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • Bradley (Vorname) — Bradley ist ein männlicher Vorname, der insbesondere im englischsprachigen Raum verbreitet ist. Herkunft und Bedeutung Der Name geht auf den englischen Familiennamen Bradley zurück, der von dem Namen mehrerer Orte abgeleitet ist. Varianten Bradly …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • Henry M. Flagler — Henry Morrison Flagler (* 2. Januar 1830 in Hopewell, New York; † 20. Mai 1913 in West Palm Beach, Florida) war ein US amerikanischer Erdölmagnat und Eisenbahnpionier, Besitzer einer Eisenbahngesellschaft und Erbauer der Bahnlinie an Floridas… …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • Frederick Henry Bradley — forces.He was 24 years old, and a Driver in the 69th Bty., Royal Field Artillery, British Army during the South African War when the following deed took place for which he was awarded the VC.On 26 September 1901 at Itala, South Africa, there was… …   Wikipedia

  • Henry B. Plant — Infobox Person name = Henry Bradley Plant image size = thumb caption = Henry Bradley Plant, developer and railroad builder on Florida s west coast. Photo from Florida Photographic Collection birth date = October 27, 1819 birth place = Branford,… …   Wikipedia

  • Bradley — In English, the meaning of the name Bradley from a surname and place name based on the Old English words for broad clearing, broad wood and beard.It is also an Anglicisation of the Irish Gaelic name O’Brolachán (also O’Brallaghan) from County… …   Wikipedia

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”