英语书籍：The Man Who Made Lists（节选）

THE MAN WHO MADE LISTS 简介 (ZT)
by Joshua Kendall


Polymath, eccentric, and synonym aficionado, Peter Mark
Roget was a scholar obsessed with his work. Though he
had a host of female admirers, was one of the first to
test the effects of laughing gas, developed the slide
rule, and narrowly escaped jail in Napoleon's France,
he is best known for making lists.

After the tragic turmoil of his early life, Roget longed
for, order in his chaotic world. At the age of eight, he
began his quest to put everything in its rightful place,
one word at a time.

=====英语书籍：The Man Who Made Lists（节选）ZT=====================


THE MAN WHO MADE LISTS
Love, Death, Madness, and the
Creation of Roget's Thesaurus
by Joshua Kendall (nonfiction)

Published by Berkley Books
A division of the Penguin Group
ISBN: 9780425225899
Copyright (c) 2008 by Joshua Kendall

======================================

PREFACE

(64) PRECURSOR, antecedent, predecessor, forerunner, van-courier,
outrider, avant-courrier.

Prelude, preamble, preface, prologue, avant-propos, proemium,
prolusion, preludium, proem, prolepsis, prolegomena, prefix,
introduction, frontispiece, groundwork.


Since first rolling off the presses of London's Longman, Brown,
Green and Longmans in June 1852, "Roget's Thesaurus of English Words
and Phrases" has emerged as one of the most recognizable books in
the English language. A proprietary eponym like Coke or Kleenex,
"Roget's" has sold nearly forty million copies.

Though nearly everyone is familiar with "Roget's," few people know
anything about Peter Mark Roget, the eminent nineteenth-century
polymath--physician, physiology expert, mathematician, inventor,
writer, editor, and chess whiz--and what motivated him to write this
immortal book.

Obsessed with words ever since he began studying Latin as a
schoolboy, Roget completed a first draft of the "Thesaurus" (the
Latin word for "treasure" or "treasury") in 1805, when he was just
twenty-six. Then working as a physician in Manchester, Roget
managed to crank out this string of word lists in less than a year.

However, it was not until his retirement from science, in 1848, at
the age of sixty-nine, that Roget took on the challenge of
finishing the "Thesaurus." The still spry Roget worked nonstop for
nearly four years to prepare the book for publication. He would
continue to tinker with his masterpiece until his death at the age
of ninety in 1869, having watched over the publication of some
twenty-eight editions.

"Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases Classified and
Arranged So as to Facilitate the Expression of Ideas and Assist in
Liter-my Composition" clearly bore the stamp of its creator.
"Roget's" was a two-for-one: it put both a book of synonyms and a
topical dictionary (a compendium of thematically arranged concepts)
under one cover.

Borrowing the principles of zoological classification, Roget
organized all knowledge--not just words. Just as his hero, the
eighteenth-century naturalist Carl Linnaeus, divided animals into
six classes, Roget divvied up his one thousand concepts as follows:


I. Abstract Relations

II. Space

III. Matter

IV. Intellect

V. Volition

VI. Affections


The first edition actually contains 1,002 concepts, but Roget was a
stickler for symmetry. Upon discovering that he had a couple too
many, he numbered "Absence of Intellect" "450a," and
"Indiscrimination" "465a."

The one thousand headings of the 1852 edition, from which are
culled the epigraphs to each chapter in this book, were arranged not
alphabetically but according to where a given idea fit within
Roget's classification system. In that edition, the first entry is
"Existence" (which falls under the first class, Abstract Relations).
The purpose: to help readers find "le mot juste" ("the right word")
for a given idea--say, "being" or "reality" for "Existence." Shortly
before publication, Roget decided to insert an alphabetical index as
an appendix, thus enabling readers to use the "Thesaurus" as a
conventional book of synonyms--without necessarily having to delve
into its complex philosophical underpinnings.

Scholars immediately began fawning over his prodigious efforts. In
1853 an anonymous reviewer observed in the "Westminster Review:"


As the words are arranged in groups, the whole Thesaurus may be read
through, and not prove dry reading either. We have known students
who had the courage to read through Latin and Greek dictionaries,
but the "ideal" classification in this work renders such an exploit
much more easy and pleasing than the ordinary alphabetical
arrangement....Roget will rank with Samuel Johnson as a literary
instrument-maker of the first-class.

Generations of British writers would look up to Roget as a kindred
soul who could offer both emotional as well as intellectual
sustenance. In the stage directions to "Peter Pan," J.M. Barrie
includes an homage to Roget:

The night nursery of the Darling family, which is the scene of our
opening Act, is at the top of a rather depressed street in
Bloom*****ury. We might have a right to place it where we will, and the
reason Bloom*****ury is chosen is that Mr. Roget once lived there. So
did we in the days when his Thesaurus was our only companion in
London; and we whom he has helped to wend our way through life have
always wanted to pay him a little compliment.



====ABOUT THE AUTHOR (ZT)==================

Joshua Kendall is a language enthusiast and an award-winning
freelance journalist who currently writes for such publications as
"Business Week" and the "Boston Globe." He lives in Boston.