HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Clarence Lewis Barnhart (1900–1993) was an American lexicographer best known for editing the ''Thorndike-Barnhart'' series of graded dictionaries, published by Scott Foresman & Co. which were based on word lists and concepts of definition developed by
psychological Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of conscious and unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immense scope, crossing the boundaries between t ...
theorist
Edward Thorndike Edward Lee Thorndike (August 31, 1874 – August 9, 1949) was an American psychologist who spent nearly his entire career at Teachers College, Columbia University. His work on comparative psychology and the learning process led to the theory o ...
. Barnhart subsequently revised and expanded the series and with the assistance of his sons, maintaining them through the 1980s.


Early years

Barnhart attended the University of Chicago and studied under noted linguist and primary founder of the
Linguistic Society of America The Linguistic Society of America (LSA) is a learned society for the field of linguistics. Founded in New York City in 1924, the LSA works to promote the scientific study of language. The society publishes three scholarly journals: ''Language'', ...
,
Leonard Bloomfield Leonard Bloomfield (April 1, 1887 – April 18, 1949) was an American linguist who led the development of structural linguistics in the United States during the 1930s and the 1940s. He is considered to be the father of American distributionalism ...
. Barnhart was influenced by Bloomfield's approach to learning which included developing word lists based on frequency of use and citation files based on real-world examples. In 1929, Barnhart joined book publisher Scott, Foresman & Co. eventually becoming an editor. Scott, Foresman paid for portions of his education in exchange for a promise of employment when his studies were complete. Barnhart graduated in 1930 and further undertook graduate studies from 1934-1937. Noted child psychologist
Edward Thorndike Edward Lee Thorndike (August 31, 1874 – August 9, 1949) was an American psychologist who spent nearly his entire career at Teachers College, Columbia University. His work on comparative psychology and the learning process led to the theory o ...
approached Scott Foresman with his ideas for a children's dictionary based on his ''Teacher's Word Book'' (1921) and upcoming ''Teacher's Word Book of the Twenty Thousand Words Found Most Frequently and Widely in General Reading for Children and Young People'' (1932.) The Scott Foresman editors brought Barnhart in to explain Thorndike's proposal after which the project was approved. Together Thorndike and Barnhart co-created the ''Thorndike-Century Junior Dictionary'' in 1935 followed by the ''Thorndike-Century Senior Dictionary'' in 1941. A revised edition of the Junior Dictionary came out in 1942, followed by the ''Thorndike-Century Beginning Dictionary'' in 1945. During
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
the United States Army approached the Linguistic Society of America seeking assistance to write a dictionary of military terms. Barnhart and Jess Stein (who would later go on to become the editor for the Random House Dictionary) were sent to New York and undertook the editing of the '' Dictionary of U.S. Army Terms'' (TM-20-205) for the War Department in 1944.


Post-war years

While in New York, Barnhart found out that
Random House Random House is an American book publisher and the largest general-interest paperback publisher in the world. The company has several independently managed subsidiaries around the world. It is part of Penguin Random House, which is owned by Germ ...
had plans to produce an “Americanized” version of the '' Oxford Concise Dictionary''. Random House had acquired the rights to the ''Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia'' in the late 1930s and the ''
Dictionary of American English ''A Dictionary of American English on Historical Principles'' (''DAE'') is a dictionary of terms appearing in English in the United States that was published in four volumes from 1938 to 1944 by the University of Chicago Press. Intended to pick u ...
'' in the early 1940s. Barnhart approached Random House and convinced them to let him take complete control of the project, from concept to design to implementation. This resulted in the ''
American College Dictionary The ''American College Dictionary'' was the first Random House dictionary and was later expanded to create the ''Random House Dictionary of the English Language''. First published in 1947, ''The American College Dictionary'' was edited by Clarence ...
'', published in 1947. This work was later used as the basis of the ''
Random House Dictionary ''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary'' is a large American dictionary, first published in 1966 as ''The Random House Dictionary of the English Language: The Unabridged Edition''. Edited by Editor-in-chief Jess Stein, it contained 315,0 ...
''. Following ''American College Dictionary'', Barnhart contracted with Scott, Foresman to produce the ''Thorndike-Barnhart'' dictionary series intended for school children. The new dictionaries were derived from the ''Thorndike-Century'' school dictionaries co-developed with Edward Thorndike in the 1930s and 1940s. His first general reference book published under the ''Thorndike-Barnhart'' name was the ''Thorndike-Barnhart Comprehensive Desk Dictionary'', first published in 1951. This was followed by the ''Thorndike-Barnhart Handy Pocket Dictionary'' (1953), and the ''Thorndike-Barnhart Concise Dictionary'' (1956.) Under Random House he produced the ''New Century Cyclopedia of Names'' in 1954, a three volume expansion of the original 1894 volume of the ''Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia''. From the ''New Century Cyclopedia of Names'' he further produced the ''The New Century Handbook of English Literature'' published in 1956. In the 1950s and 1960s, he also developed the linguistic approach to reading instruction begun by Leonard Bloomfield, entitled '' Let's Read'' which was published in 1961. Barnhart, aided by his sons, continued to update and revise the ''Thorndike-Barnhart'' school dictionaries throughout the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. These became the most popular school dictionaries in the United States. All dictionaries for schools were published by Scott Foresman and in the trade market by Doubleday. During the 1980s the dictionaries were published under two alternative titles. The advanced dictionary was published as either ''Thorndike-Barnhart Advanced Dictionary'' or ''Thorndike-Barnhart Student's Dictionary''. The middle dictionary was published as either ''Thorndike-Barnhart Intermediate Dictionary'' or ''Thorndike-Barnhart Advanced Junior Dictionary''. The junior dictionary was published as either ''Thorndike-Barnhart Beginning Dictionary'' or ''Thorndike-Barnhart Junior Dictionary''. In 1997, Scott Foresman was acquired by
Pearson Education Pearson Education is a British-owned education publishing and assessment service to schools and corporations, as well for students directly. Pearson owns educational media brands including Addison–Wesley, Peachpit, Prentice Hall, eCollege, ...
who retired the work in favour of their
Longman Longman, also known as Pearson Longman, is a publishing company founded in London, England, in 1724 and is owned by Pearson PLC. Since 1968, Longman has been used primarily as an imprint by Pearson's Schools business. The Longman brand is also ...
brand dictionaries. His largest general dictionary was the ''
World Book Dictionary ''The World Book Dictionary'' is a two-volume English dictionary published as a supplement to the ''World Book Encyclopedia''. It was originally published in 1963 under the editorship of Clarence Barnhart, who wrote definitions for the Thorndi ...
'', a two-volume work created as a supplement to the ''
World Book Encyclopedia The ''World Book Encyclopedia'' is an American encyclopedia. The encyclopedia is designed to cover major areas of knowledge uniformly, but it shows particular strength in scientific, technical, historical and medical subjects. ''World Book'' wa ...
''. It is essentially an expanded and more advanced version of the Thorndike-Barnhart school dictionaries. It was first published in 1963 and was updated annually until 1976, whereupon it had a major revision, totaling approximately 225,000 individual entries. Consistent with the encyclopedia's use by young people, Barnhart wrote definitions which were both simple and accurate, and most entries include sample sentences or phrases. Many definitions are the same, or almost the same, as those of the Thorndike-Barnhart school dictionaries. Like ''Webster's Third New International'', it included few proper names, leaving them to be covered by the companion volumes of the encyclopedia. Throughout the 1980s up until the 1990s the work was periodically revised and updated with the last revision done by his son Robert and his wife Cynthia Barnhart in 1996. He also co-edited of ''
The Barnhart Dictionary of New English Since 1963 ''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the ...
'' (copyright 1973), ''
The Second Barnhart Dictionary of New English ''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the ...
'' (copyright 1980), and ''
The Third Barnhart Dictionary of New English ''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the ...
'' (copyright 1990). These works were designed to cover new words, meanings, and changes in usage. In 1982, with his son David, he began editing a quarterly publication devoted to thorough dictionary treatment of new words, new meanings and changes in usage entitled ''
The Barnhart Dictionary Companion ''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the ...
''. Nearly all of his dictionaries were based heavily upon the collection of evidence, the value of which he learned from work he did for Sir William Craigie on the ''
Dictionary of American English ''A Dictionary of American English on Historical Principles'' (''DAE'') is a dictionary of terms appearing in English in the United States that was published in four volumes from 1938 to 1944 by the University of Chicago Press. Intended to pick u ...
'' at the University of Chicago. Over his career of 64 years he and his staff accumulated a file of over 7 million quotations exhibiting contemporary usage of English words. He was active in
interlinguistics Interlinguistics, as the science of planned languages, has existed for more than a century as a specific branch of linguistics for the study of various aspects of linguistic communication. Interlinguistics is a discipline formalized by Otto Jespers ...
, serving as a consultant to the research body that presented
Interlingua Interlingua (; ISO 639 language codes ia, ina) is an international auxiliary language (IAL) developed between 1937 and 1951 by the American International Auxiliary Language Association (IALA). It ranks among the most widely used IALs and is t ...
in 1951. In the late 20th century he and his son helped to pioneer the use of electronically retrievable evidence from computerized files of news publications. His sons,
David Barnhart David K. Barnhart (born 1941) is an American lexicographer who specializes in new words. He began his career helping his father, Clarence Barnhart, edit the ''Thorndike-Barnhart'' dictionary series. In 1980 he founded Lexik House Publishers. In ...
and
Robert Barnhart Robert K. Barnhart (1933 – April 2007) was an American lexicographer and editor of various specialized dictionaries. He was co-editor, with his father Clarence Barnhart, on some editions of the '' Thorndike-Barnhart'' dictionaries and ''Th ...
, worked with him on many of his later projects.


Notes


References

* Esterhill, Frank, ''Interlingua Institute: A History''. New York: Interlingua Institute, 2000.
The Barnhart Dictionary Archive
(site containing biography and history of dictionaries) {{DEFAULTSORT:Barnhart, Clarence American bibliographers American lexicographers 1900 births 1993 deaths 20th-century American non-fiction writers 20th-century lexicographers University of Chicago alumni