LEARNING THE ALPHABET BEFORE USING THE DICTIONARY.

LEARNING THE ALPHABET BEFORE USING THE DICTIONARY. James Gleick has an article in the December 18 New York Review of Books which reviews THE FIRST ENGLISH DICTIONARY, 1604 by Robert Cawdrey, which has now been republished. Cawdrey included instructions for his readers. They should learn their alphabet, and also learn that a word beginning (ca) would come at the beginning of words beginning with (c): “Thou must learne the Alphabet, to wit, the order of the Letters as they stand…. Nowe if the word, which thou art desirous to finde, begin with (a) then looke in the beginning of this Table, but if with (v) looke towards the end. Againe, if thy word beginne with (ca) looke in the beginning of the letter (c) but if with (cu) then looke toward the end of that letter. And so of all the rest. &c.” I had always taken alphabetical order for granted, but, of course, everything has a beginning.