The use of “mechanical reasoning”: John Quincy and his Lexicon physico-medicum (1719)
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Roderick McConchie
Abstract
The medical dictionary by John Quincy (1683?-1723) reveals a lexicographer with an agenda which arose from the circumstances of his life and is forcefully expressed in the dictionary. First an apothecary, and then a physician, Quincy foregrounded the English language and the principles of Newtonianism and the mechanistic view of medicine in his work. His dictionary became the most popular and durable one in the eighteenth century.
Abstract
The medical dictionary by John Quincy (1683?-1723) reveals a lexicographer with an agenda which arose from the circumstances of his life and is forcefully expressed in the dictionary. First an apothecary, and then a physician, Quincy foregrounded the English language and the principles of Newtonianism and the mechanistic view of medicine in his work. His dictionary became the most popular and durable one in the eighteenth century.
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter I
- Contents V
- Introduction VII
- Reading Trench reading Richardson 1
- Did Anne Maxwell print John Wilkins’s An essay towards a real character and a philosophical language (1668)? 23
- “As well for the entertainment of the curious, as the information of the ignorant” 57
- Printed English dictionaries in the National Library of Russia to the mid-seventeenth century 95
- “A hundred visions and revisions”: Malone’s annotations to Johnson’s Dictionary 115
- The use of “mechanical reasoning”: John Quincy and his Lexicon physico-medicum (1719) 149
- Paratexts and the first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary: ‘content marketing’ in the nineteenth century? 165
- The “wants” of women: Lexicography and pedagogy in seventeenth- and eighteenthcentury dictionaries* 187
- Claudius Hollyband: A lexicographer speaks his mind 211
- Subscribers and Patrons: Jacob Serenius and his Dictionarium Anglo-Svethico-Latinum 1734 237
- “Weak Shrube or Underwood”: The unlikely medical glossator John Woodall and his glossary 261
- A “florid” preface about “a language that is very short, concise and sententious” 285
- List of contributors 307
- Index 311
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter I
- Contents V
- Introduction VII
- Reading Trench reading Richardson 1
- Did Anne Maxwell print John Wilkins’s An essay towards a real character and a philosophical language (1668)? 23
- “As well for the entertainment of the curious, as the information of the ignorant” 57
- Printed English dictionaries in the National Library of Russia to the mid-seventeenth century 95
- “A hundred visions and revisions”: Malone’s annotations to Johnson’s Dictionary 115
- The use of “mechanical reasoning”: John Quincy and his Lexicon physico-medicum (1719) 149
- Paratexts and the first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary: ‘content marketing’ in the nineteenth century? 165
- The “wants” of women: Lexicography and pedagogy in seventeenth- and eighteenthcentury dictionaries* 187
- Claudius Hollyband: A lexicographer speaks his mind 211
- Subscribers and Patrons: Jacob Serenius and his Dictionarium Anglo-Svethico-Latinum 1734 237
- “Weak Shrube or Underwood”: The unlikely medical glossator John Woodall and his glossary 261
- A “florid” preface about “a language that is very short, concise and sententious” 285
- List of contributors 307
- Index 311
