The Concise Dictionary of Scottish Quotations (eBook)

In the second part of the twentieth centurythere began to be a marked increase in thenumber of reference books available inbookshops. No longer was the referencelibrary of the average fairly educatedhousehold restricted to one dictionary,probably dog-eared and several decadesold, one out-dated copy of Roget'sThesaurus, either much-thumbed orpristine, according to the needs of thehousehold, and possibly an old copy ofFowler's English Usage.This increased interest in referencepublishing started with dictionaries and agreat variety of these, in various shapes andsizes, began to be made available to thepublic. This sparked off an interest in otherkinds of reference books. Existing onesbegan to be regularly updated and a wholedeluge of new ones appeared. Theseincluded thesauruses, guides to good usage,guides to good grammar, guides to correctspelling, hints on how to improve yourwriting, books of idioms and so on.They also included a varied range ofbooks of quotations. A quotation in thecontext of dictionaries of quotations is apiece of writing by someone, usuallysomeone well-known, that seems so apt ormemorable that other people refer to it intheir own speech or writing. Up till thatpoint, there had really been only one wellknowndictionary of quotations and thiswas the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations.Now many more became available andseemed to whet the public's appetite.Some people use dictionaries ofquotations like this one simply for thepleasure of browsing through them.Browsing, after all, is one of the invaluable uses of reference books and a great deal ofknowledge can be acquired in a relativelypainless way when browsing.Browsers of dictionaries of quotationsmay find pleasure in identifying aquotation that seems particularlyappropriate to some situation in their ownlives. However, some people may use adictionary of quotations, such as this one,for a more specific purpose. They may, forexample, use a dictionary of quotations tofind out the source of something they haveencountered in their reading, or to checkthe exact wording of a quotation they halfremember.Many people use dictionaries ofquotations seeking inspiration for a speechwhich they have to make. A quotationmakes an excellent hook on which to hangan after-dinner speech, as many peoplehave discovered.