Work
In pure philology, Skeat's principal achievement is his Etymological English Dictionary (4 parts, 1879-1882; rev, and enlarged, 1910). While preparing the dictionary he wrote hundreds of short articles on word origins for the London-based journal Notes and Queries. Skeat was also a pioneer of place-name studies.
His other works include:
- The Holy Gospels in Anglo-Saxon, Northumbrian, and Old Mercian Versions (1871)
- Specimens of English from 1394 to 1597 (1871)
- Specimens of Early English from 1298 to 1393 (1872), in conjunction with Richard Morris
- Principles of English Etymology (2 series, 1887 and 1891)
- A Concise Dictionary of Middle English (1888), in conjunction with A. L. Mayhew
- A Student's Pastime (1896), a volume of essays
- The Chaucer Canon (1900)
- A Primer of Classical and English Philology (1905)
- "A Glossary of Tudor and Stuart Words" (1914) with A. L. Mayhew
- The place-names of Cambridgeshire (1901)
- Place-names of Huntingdonshire (1902)
- Place-names of Hertfordshire (1904)
- Place-names of Bedfordshire (1906)
- Place-names of Berkshire (1911)
- Place-names of Suffolk (1913)
Somewhat incidentally in the perspective of his main body of work, Skeat coined the term ghost word and was a leading expert in this treacherous and difficult subject.
Read more about this topic: Walter William Skeat
Famous quotes containing the word work:
“Enough if the work has seemed,
So did she your strength renew,
A dream that a lion had dreamed
Till the wilderness cried aloud.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“The slightest living thing answers a deeper need than all the works of man because it is transitory. It has an evanescence of life, or growth, or change: it passes, as we do, from one stage to the another, from darkness to darkness, into a distance where we, too, vanish out of sight. A work of art is static; and its value and its weakness lie in being so: but the tuft of grass and the clouds above it belong to our own travelling brotherhood.”
—Freya Stark (b. 1893–1993)
“Don’t you know there are 200 temperance women in this county who control 200 votes. Why does a woman work for temperance? Because she’s tired of liftin’ that besotted mate of hers off the floor every Saturday night and puttin’ him on the sofa so he won’t catch cold. Tonight we’re for temperance. Help yourself to them cloves and chew them, chew them hard. We’re goin’ to that festival tonight smelling like a hot mince pie.”
—Laurence Stallings (1894–1968)