Читать книгу How to Make an Index - Wheatley Henry Benjamin - Страница 4

"At the laundress's at the Hole in the Wall in Cursitor's Alley up three pair of stairs, the author of my Church history—you may also speak to the gentleman who lies by him in the flock bed, my index maker."—Swift's Account of the Condition of Edmund Curll (Instructions to a porter how to find Mr. Curll's authors).

BAD indexers are everywhere, and what is most singular is that each one makes the same sort of blunders—blunders which it would seem impossible that any one could make, until we find these same blunders over and over again in black and white. One of the commonest is to place the references under unimportant words, for which no one would think of looking, such as A and The. The worst indexes of this class are often added to journals and newspapers. A good instance of confusion will be found in the index to a volume of The Freemason which is before me; but this is by no means singular, and certainly not the worst of its class. Under A we find the following entries:

"Afternoon Outing of the Skelmersdale Lodge."

"An Oration delivered," etc.

"Annual Outing of the Queen Victoria Lodge."

"Another Masonic MS."

Under B:

"Bro. Bain's Masonic Library."

Under F:

"First Ball of the Fellowship Lodge.

"First Ladies' Night."

Under I:

"Interesting Extract from an 'Old Masonian's' Letter."

Under L:

"Ladies' Banquet."

"Ladies' Night."

"Ladies' Summer Outing."

"Late Bro. Sir B. W. Richardson."

Under N:

"New Grand Officers."

"New Home for Keighley Freemasons."

"New Masonic Hall."

Under O:

"Our Portrait Gallery."

Under R:

"Recent Festival."

Under S:

"Send-off dinner."

"Summer Festival."

"Summer Outing."

Under T:

"Third Ladies' Night."

Under Y:

"Ye olde Masonians."

There are many other absurd headings, but these are the worst instances. They show the confusion of not only placing references where they would never be looked for, but of giving similar entries all over the index under whatever heading came first to the mind of the indexer. For instance, there is one Afternoon Outing, one Annual Outing, one Ladies' Outing, one Summer Outing, and three other Outings under O. None of these have any references the one from the other.

There are a large number of indexes in which not only the best heading is not chosen, but the very worst is. Thus, choosing at random, we find such an order as the following in an old volume of the Canadian Journal