One really commendable thing about St Onge’s dictionary
Cross-referencing. Louis-Napoléon Saint Onge was great at creating separate entries for phrases or words that are also used in some larger expression, or in some different inflection.
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In his manuscript dictionary, for example, he has these 2 expressions for “inquisitive”:
- kwanesom tik̂eĥ komtoks
(literally “always wanting to know”) - kwanesom tik̂eĥ nanich
(literally “always wanting to see”)
And he has cross-entries not just for each individual word you see there, but also for these mid-level phrases:
- tik̂eĥ komtoks
(for “enquire”, “interrogate”, etc.) - tik̂eĥ nanich
(for “expect”; “curious”, etc.)
Believe me, for a dictionary editor, it’s a blessing when the person reporting the data is sensitive to the intricacies of the language’s structure!
