Keynote Speaker 2019

Macquarie Dictionary: its beginnings and its interactions with users

This paper provides a history of the Macquarie Dictionary with an emphasis on the elements necessary for the successful publication of a national dictionary of Australian English. I give a brief account of the social context in which the dictionary was published, the way in which it was presented to the Australian public and received by it. Then I look at the ways in which a dictionary, once created, connects to the language community. The dictionary finds itself at the heart of some disputes – over spelling as it relates to a sense of national identity, where the development of a norm in Australian English is not as straightforward as you might have thought. There are also awkward moments where it is evident that taboo words are undergoing generational change. There are flashpoints in politics where words matter, as in the case of misogyny, and there is angst over what is an acceptable new word to include in the august pages of the national lexicon, particularly in the area of slang.