267.HOW DID FAIRY TALES BEGIN?
When you read a fairy tale that you enjoy very much, you may imagine that the author of the book made it up. If the book was written in modern times, this may be so. But did you know that long ago people did not invent fairy tales?
The great storytellers used to simply report what they had heard, for the stones had existed for thousands of years. According to some people, many fairy tales are based on a memory of something that really happened. But, of course, one has to look beyond the mere incidents of the stories to find out what it was.
266.HOW DID DICTIONARIES BEGIN?
What is a dictionary as we know it today? It is a book that lists the words of a language and gives their meanings, usually in alphabetical order. Often there is also information regarding the pronunciation, the
origin of the words, and how they are used. Strangely enough, it took hundreds of years for even the idea of such a book to develop. The first time the word “dictionary” was used it appeared in its Latin form, dictionarius which means “a collection of words.” This was about the year 1225, and it was the title of a manuscript containing Latin words to be memorized. This dictionaries was used only in the classroom in the teaching of Latin.
265.DID THEY HAVE LIBRARIES IN ANCIENT TIMES?
A library is an attempt to gather together man’s writings, and this effort was first made long before the birth of Christ.
Scientists who dug up Ur, the city of the patriarch Abraham, discovered a clay signet. This was a cylinder of clay on which there were writings. It goes back to 800 B.C., and may have belonged to the first library.
