Monday, December 2, 2019

Beyond Coveting

According to a recent article in the New York Times, German scholars are working steadily away on a Latin dictionary, the Thesaurus Linguae Latinae (T.L.I.) and hope to be done by 2050. I don't think that an actuary would advise me to subscribe. The dictionary aims to catalogue every way that a word was used between the earliest recorded Latin and about 600 A.D.

If the current eighteen volumes average three inches in thickness, that would amount to four and a half linear feet.  I wouldn't mind having a better Latin dictionary around the house--I regret one not bought a few years ago at a sale. But this is so far beyond any use I might have that I can admire the project but can't covet the product.



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