The Word impossible is not in my
dictionary
(The Word impossible is not in my
dictionary was actually said by the first man who compiled a dictionary, Dr.
Johnson.)
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Now, have you ever thought, what
a novel idea it was to think of compiling a dictionary?? I mean, there was Dr. Johnson, he was doing
very well in the literary line; he was selling his stuff all over the place.
But, he suddenly thought, no, let's stop writing the stuff with the ideas and
let's get all the words and put them in one book, alphabetically like a
telephone book, except of course there were no telephone book, except of course
there were no telephone books then.
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And he went around to his
publisher, I have a wonderful idea; instead of flogging away at these essays,
how about a dictionary?
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And the publisher said,
"What IS a dictionary?"
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He said, "Well, now, if you
had a dictionary, you'd be able to look it up and SEE what it meant."
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So the publisher said,
"Well, if you can do it fairly quickly, I may be able to find a market for
it."
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So, Dr Johnson went home and he
set about compiling a dictionary. Now, how do you start compiling a dictionary?
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That was his first problem. So
what he did was first of all, he wrote down all the words that he knew.? Just one after another, Marine, hepatitis,
all those common garden words that everyone uses.
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And then he called round all his
friends and said, "Just give me words. Throw them at me.? Any word you like."
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And they just threw these words
at him, all sorts. "Agorophobia," one man said.
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And he said, "What's
that?"
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And he said, "It's a a
morbid fear of public places."
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And Johnson said, "Well, I
never knew that."??
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And he wrote that one down.
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He said, "That is a
winner."? And he put that one down,
agorophobia, it came on page 23.
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He knew he was going to tell his
publisher, if you think it's dull, sir, wait until you get to page 23."
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And then he sorted them all out
and put them all in alphabetical order, one under the other.? They were left with the letter I.?
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They didn't seem to find many for
the letter I. Illicit.? Someone kept
saying "Illicit.
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And then it came to the word Irk.
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And Johnson said, "It starts
with an e. "
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He said, "No it isn't.? That's the Air Force one.? It's irk, i-r-k."
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And Johnson said, "I always
thought that was Iraq."
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"It's pronounced irk."
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"All right. We'll put it
down."
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And they looked at the list and
they had all these wonderful words that begin with I, like ironmonger and
income tax and iridescent, iraquaquana; he had that down.
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And he got them all down, and he
said, "Now, before we go round to the publisher let's just make sure that
there's no word that we forgot. Is there any word at all that we've
forgotten?"
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And they all sat down.? They sat down for an hour.
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"Is there any word at all?
Any word at all?"
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"Have you got
epsilentary?"
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He said, "There isn't such a
word."
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"Right.?? Right.?
I was just trying you out.? You're
quite right."
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They finally decided that they
had all the words in the English tongue.?
And they took this round to the publisher and Johnson said, "Very
well. There you are.? There it is. The
very first ever dictionary.? With every
word in the English language."
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And the publisher said, "I can't believe it."
He said, "It's so.? Tell me any word."
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"Agorophobia."
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"It's on page 23.? Look."?
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And sure enough, page 23, there
was agoraphobia.
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And the publisher said, "I
cannot believe this."
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And Johnson said, "It only
took me three months."
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And the publisher said, "You
DID ALL THIS IN THREE MONTHS.?
Impossible."
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Johnson said, "What?"
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And he said,
"Impossible."
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And Johnson burst out crying and
said, "The word impossible is not in my dictionary."
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Denis Norden 580709b
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