"Old English Lexicography and the Problem of
Headword Spelling." ANQ: A Quarterly Journal of Short Articles, Notes and Reviews 6 (1): 3-11.
Each
headword includes morphological inflections, indicating word class, much as in a standard dictionary.
(5) In White's glossary, the
headword is written as "Leornenn, lernenn, to learn, to teach"?
type of information presented about the
headword of each entry;
These are The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm's Son, "Leaf by Niggle," "The Lay of Aotrou and Itroun," "Imram," the poems of The Adventures of Tom Bombadil, Smith of Wootton Major, and "Bilbo's Last Song." Though the essay warns that its approach will result "inevitably in a heterogeneous essay" (103), the paper appears more like a catalogue, with the treatment of each work--sometimes only a couple of sentences--appearing under its
headword. The paper begins with a section "In Praise of Shortness," which argues, in essence, that these works are better subjects for thematic analysis than, say, The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion, being more concentrated in their themes than longer writings, and less likely to support multiple interpretations.
In particular, we assumed that roots were no more than four moras (Krupa 1966, Krupa 1971), and further scrutinized the entry of each
headword for evidence of complexity, including common affixes, reduplication, and cross-referencing.
Entries in the dictionary include cultural information relevant to a particular
headword, such as in the entry for nala, meaning 'war club', in which half a column is devoted to describing the weapons used, how they were made and held, etc.
The field of curriculum studies recognizes the limitations if not dangers of official knowledge (an entry in the publication) and an authorial voice (not a
headword).
He notes in the introduction that "every '
headword' that is explored here evoked in me an 'Aha!' when I first encountered it." This book stirs up similar feelings in the reader: the delight that comes with finding the unexpected embedded within the familiar.
