首页
登录
职称英语
Why should anyone buy the latest volume in the ever-expanding Dictionary of N
Why should anyone buy the latest volume in the ever-expanding Dictionary of N
游客
2023-12-15
12
管理
问题
Why should anyone buy the latest volume in the ever-expanding Dictionary of National Biography? I do not mean that it is bad, as the reviewers will agree. But it will cost you 65 pounds. And have you got the rest of volumes? You need the basic 22 plus the largely decennial supplements to bring the total to 31. Of course, it will be answered, public and academic libraries want the new volume. After all, it adds 1,068 lives of people who escaped the net of the original compilers. Yet in 10 years’ time a revised version of the whole caboodle, called the New Dictionary of National Biography, will be published. Its editor, Professor Colin Matthew, tells me that he will have room for about 50,000 lives, some 13,000 more than in the current DNB. This rather puts the 1,068 in Missing Persons in the shade.
When Dr Nicholls wrote to The Spectator in 1989 asking for names of people whom readers had looked up in the DNB and had been disappointed not to find, she says that she received some 100,000 suggestions. (Well, she had written to "other quality newspapers" too.) As soon as her committee had whittled the numbers down, the professional problems of an editor began. Contributors didn’t file copy on time; some who did send too much: 50,000 words instead of 500 is a record, according to Dr Nieholls.
There remains the dinner-party game of who’s in, who’s out. That is a game that the reviewers have played and will continue to play. Criminals were my initial worry. After all, the original edition of the DNB boasted: Malefactors whose crimes excite a permanent interest have received hardly less attention than benefactors. Mr John Gross clearly had similar anxieties, for he complains that, while the murderer Christie is in, Crippen is out. One might say in reply that the injustice of the hanging of Evans instead of Christie was a force in the repeal of capital punishment in Britain, as Ludovie Kennedy (the author of Christies entry in Missing Persons)notes. But then Crippen was reputed as the first murderer to be caught by telegraphy (he had tried to escape by ship to America).
It is surprising to find Max Miller excluded when really not very memorable names get in. There has been a conscious effort to put in artists and architects from the Middle Ages. About their lives not much is always known.
Of Hugo of Bury St Edmunds, a 12th-century illuminator whose dates of birth and death are not recorded, his biographer comments: "Whether or not Hugo was a wall-painter, the records of his activities as carver and manuscript painter attest to his versatility." Then there had to be more women, too (12 per cent, against the original DBN’s 3), such as Roy Strong’s subject, the Tudor painter Levina Teerlinc, of whom he remarks: "Her most characteristic feature is a head attached to a too small, spindly body. Her technique remained awkward, thin and often cursory." Doesn’t seem to qualify her as a memorable artist. Yet it may be better than the record of the original DNB, which included lives of people who never existed (such as Merlin) and even managed to give thanks to J.W.Clerke as a contributor, though, as a later edition admits in a shamefaced footnote, "except for the entry in the List of Contributors there is no trace of J.W. Clerke" [br] On the issue of who should be included in the DNB, the writer seems to suggest that ______.
选项
A、the editors had clear rules to follow
B、there were too many criminals in the entries
C、the editors clearly favoured benefactors
D、the editors were irrational in their choices
答案
D
解析
推断题。通过第三段中的有关罪犯词条的选择、第四段中有关不包含Max Miller的例子以及第五段中有关什么样的妇女应包括进去这几段文字,作者告诉读者的信息就是编辑们的选择没什么章法。
转载请注明原文地址:https://tihaiku.com/zcyy/3276078.html
相关试题推荐
Youshouldnotfearspidersthankstotheirpoison.Ofallthespidersin
Youshouldnotfearspidersthankstotheirpoison.Ofallthespidersin
Youshouldnotfearspidersthankstotheirpoison.Ofallthespidersin
Youshouldnotfearspidersthankstotheirpoison.Ofallthespidersin
Youshouldnotfearspidersthankstotheirpoison.Ofallthespidersin
Youshouldnotfearspidersthankstotheirpoison.Ofallthespidersin
Youshouldnotfearspidersthankstotheirpoison.Ofallthespidersin
Atpresentsomepeopleclaimthatweshouldnotbelievejournalistsbecausew
Theconditionsofartshouldbesimple.Agreatdealmoredependsuponthehe
Whyshouldanyonebuythelatestvolumeintheever-expandingDictionaryofN
随机试题
"ButIjustpaid$1.69forthisbottleofwinelastweek.Howcometheprice
不属于根据教学过程不同阶段划分的测验是()。A.准备性测验 B.形成性
关于土地所有权,下列叙述错误的是()。A.城市市区的土地属于国家所有 B.
在高效液相色谱法中,常用的检测器是A.紫外光检测器 B.红外线检测器 C.荧
以下符合保荐代表人注册条件的有()A.具备3年以上保荐相关业务经历 B.最近
非金融机构开展资产管理业务已经暴露出一些风险和问题不包括( )。A.打击虚假误
强心苷与噻嗪类利尿药合用应注意补充A.硫酸盐 B.钾盐 C.钡盐 D.生理
2020年,全国软件和信息技术服务业(即软件业)企业超4万家,累计完成软件业务收
2014年一季度世界粗钢总产量是多少万吨?() A.20270 B.35
心悸不安,胸闷气短,面色苍白,形寒肢冷,舌淡苔白,脉沉细无力。治宜选用的中成药是
最新回复
(
0
)