For the love of the English language

Early this year Orange City Life caught up with retired electrician and procedural writer, Peter Rodgers, to talk about his obsession with leather working, but during our chat it quickly became apparent that Peter is not one to stop at just a single hobby.

It was near the end of our interview, almost as an afterthought, that Peter casually volunteered that he also wrote dictionaries in his spare time.

Well, we thought it was high time to get Peter back in the office and tell us all about his love of the English language.

“It started out many, many, years ago,” said Peter, when asked just how he came to put together a 300-plus page dictionary of obscure and obsolete words, with a second volume underway.

“I was sitting in a doctors surgery waiting for my appointment. I picked up a magazine and there was a crossword puzzle there called the ‘easy one’… I couldn't get one word! Not one conceivable word out of it!”

Peter quickly became obsessed with crossword puzzles and then with pouring over dictionaries for obscure and unusual words.

“I'm just really interested in old and obsolete, or rare words and there are thousands of them that we have lost! It is just incredible; some of them are more interesting than others, but when you look at these words, they're so just fascinating,” said Peter.

“We are losing so many and why do we actually want to lose these words? Like the dot above an ‘i’ is called a tittle, but everyone says it is a ‘dot above the i’. We are really reducing our language.”

So, about 20 years ago Peter decided that someone should collect all these forgotten words.

“To write a book was always on my bucket lists was and I didn't want to write a novel… my son said to me one day, ‘Dad, you're like a walking dictionary.’ So, I thought that's what I'll do! I'll write a dictionary!”

It took 15 years, but Peter did what he set out to do, self-publishing his very own dictionary, full of words like galeanthropy, matutolypea, moirologist and obstrigillate.

“I think there are about seven and a half thousand words in there,” said Peter, holding his leather-bound dictionary. “It was a disease in the end and I still do it today… Every one of those words are fascinating to me and I don't think I'll ever stop. There are so many words out there that we have just lost.

“Language is the key to the hearts of the people; if we didn't have a language, we'd still be in grottos grunting at each other. I just find it so fascinating!”