Abstract
This article discusses two nineteenth-century rhetors who engaged in cultural persuasion through their respective lexicons. It argues that lexicography served an epideictic function in nineteenth-century culture, entering educational values and pervading print culture. Nineteenth-century lexicography functioned epideictically as a storehouse of cultural values and influenced the discourse of nineteenth-century rhetorics, evidenced in their concern with clarity, usage, and the disambiguation of language. But there is an acceptance and awareness of the inherent ambiguity of language in nineteenth-century rhetoric, which is also reflected in other satirical lexicons. The two poles of lexicography in theory and practice illustrate how dictionaries became a site of cultural dialogue and dissent.
Notes
1The author thanks RR peer reviewers Maureen Goggin and Barbara Johnstone, without whom this article would not be, and also Sue Carter Wood for her guidance and encouragement.