New Canadianese to English Dictionary

From JUOD

The New Canadianese to English Dictionary, referred to by scholars as 'Mathewson's Dictionary', is an incomplete collection of translated New Canadianese words compiled by Harley P. Mathewson in the mid-twentieth century. Many of the entries are simply the first definition of their English equivalent, however because of the grammatical restrictions of the language Mathewson was forced to invent millions of new words. A unique quality to the dictionary, apart from its immense size, is that entries do not appear in alphabetical order. Instead it seems that Mathewson organized his dictionary as he thought of new words or, in some special cases, for the greatest comedic impact.

Preface to the Dictionary

Much like proto-joiner Samuel Johnson's dictionary, Mathewson's contained a long and informative preface, containing much of the information we known about New Canadianese as well as other facets of Mathewson's life during the time of composition. (However, by far the majority of the preface is spent discussing the facets of Upper Prussian, and several other made up languages that are not connected with or relate to New Canadianese whatsoever.) A complete version of the preface was, oddly, not included with the only copy of the dictionary known to exist. Neither is it contained in The Verities of Joining, Mathewson's tour de force. This has led some scholars to argue that in fact, despite containing the title "Preface," the work was not written to preface the dictionary but is in fact a separate work entirely. By far the majority of scholars, however, argue that it is precisely what it says it is, pointing to the fact that since Mathewson didn't even order the dictionary alphabetically he hardly cared whether a "preface" would actually preface the dictionary.

The only section explicitly dealing with New Canadianese is as follows:

Okay, okay on to New Canadianese. There's a bunch of words in the dictionary that those of us (the few of us) without feeble minds should be able to quickly learn and master, making New Canadianese the new great language. Soon it will replace French as the language of the world! Certainly it will never be English. Never. Anyway, there's really no grammar rules to learn, or really any new pronunciations. Those are stupid ways of languages--something some pompous ass like Tolkien would be worried about. No no, New Canadianese merely requires memorization, for all words depending on their definition and function in a sentence require the learning of a new word. Thus there should be only about 3.5 million words to memorize. Easy enough. Oh, yes and I forgot to mention something about Upper Prussian...

Excerpts from Mathewson's Dictionary

• From p. 7
  • forgive \for-'giv\ verb: 1. a fictional, act, state, or disposition that neither non-joiner nor joiner shall ever experience and is an act of the foolish. (To err is human, to forgive feeble-minded.)
  • sureprise \shu̇r-'prīz\ noun: to come upon or discover so suddenly and unexpectedly that certain death is expected
• From p. 142
  • sack \'sak\ noun: 1. a usually rectangular-shaped bag (as of paper, burlap, or canvas)
  • douchebag \'düsh-bag\ noun: 1. an unattractive, offensive, and otherwise non-joinish person
  • douchebaggery \düsh-'ba-gər-rē\ noun: 1. an unattractive, offensive, and otherwise non-joinish behavior (margin notes: Good thing I thought of sack first!)
  • douchebadgery \düsh-'ba-jər-rē\ noun: 1. behavior so unattractive, offensive, or otherwise non-joinish that it splits the bone
• From p. 334
  • shapen \'shā-pən\ adjective: 1. having a form
  • misshapen \,mis-'shā-pən\ adjective: 1. having a bad or ugly form
  • malshapen \,mal-'shā-pən\ adjective: 1. having a bad or ugly form as a result of malicious creation. (The Muppets, because of the demented nature of their created, looked quite malshapen.)
• From p. 735:
  • lexicography \ˌlek-sə-ˈkä-grə-fē\ noun: 1. BORING. (The manuscript abruptly ends.)