Ash is best known as a lexicographer, author of: •
New and Complete Dictionary of the English Language... To which is prefixed a comprehensive grammar. Vol I; Vol. II, 1775, 2nd edition 1795. Ash's
New and Complete Dictionary was noteworthy for the number of
obsolete and
provincial words contained in it. It incorporated most of
Nathan Bailey's collection of
canting words. This dictionary was the first to define in English the previously omitted words
fuck and
cunt. His debt to
Samuel Johnson was demonstrated in a famous error in his
etymology of the word
curmudgeon, which he says derives from the French for "unknown correspondent"; Johnson's
A Dictionary of the English Language from twenty years before had suggested (erroneously, as it happens) that the word derives from "cœur méchant" (malicious-hearted), attributing his information to an "unknown correspondent". ''Ash's Dictionary'' is mentioned in
Thomas Hardy's novel
Far from the Madding Crowd. An earlier work was: •
Grammatical Institutes. It has been commented that "Ash understood much better than
Lowth what it took to write a grammar for children." Other works: •
Sentiments on Education, collected from the best writers; properly methodized, and interspersed with occasional observations. Vol. I; Vol. II, 1777 •
The perfecting of the saints for the work of the ministry. A sermon, preached in Broad-Mead, Bristol, before the Bristol Education Society, August 12, 1778, 1778 •
Dialogues of Eumenes.' ==References==