dirty words in dictionaries

[John McChesney-Young]

George A. Thompson wrote in part:

>I have long had a copy of Wessely's Latin-English Dictionary, first
>published in the late 19th century, a pocket-sized affair
>undoubtedly for the use of students....
>Some years ago I made a gesture toward researching this publication,
>but did not see any way to determine the actual date of printing of
>my copy ...

Harvard's copy is unhelpfully cataloged with the date "[18-]".

Handy dictionary of the Latin and English languages. With an appendix
of Latin, geographical, historical, and mythological proper names.
Published :     Philadelphia, D. McKay, [18-].
Notes : On cover: Wessely.
Authors :       Wessely, I. E. (Ignaz Emanuel), 1841-1900.

It's not in the LOC, the University of California library system,
COPAC, nor in a few other catalogs I checked. Wessely compiled quite
a few other language dictionaries that are much more commonly held; I
wonder whether the scarcity of the Latin volume is related to its
naughty bit(s)?

John
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*** John McChesney-Young  **  panis at pacbell.net  **   Berkeley,
California, U.S.A.  ***