RT Journal Article SR Electronic(1) A1 MacArthur, Fiona YR 2015 T1 On using a dictionary to identify the basic senses of words JF Metaphor and the Social World VO 5 IS 1 SP 124 OP 136 DO https://doi.org/10.1075/msw.5.1.07mac PB John Benjamins SN 2210-4070, AB This article-cum-narrative reflects on the use — indeed usefulness — of a dictionary in helping the researcher to identify metaphorical and non-metaphorical uses of language. Focusing on a group of ‘saying’ verbs as they were used in a face-to-face conversation between a university lecturer and an undergraduate student, it describes a researcher’s attempts to use the dictionary recommended by the Pragglejaz Group in their seminal article on metaphor identification (2007) to discover what basic sense of different words might (or might not) motivate their metaphorical meaning in context. The quest to identify the basic meanings of these verbs using this dictionary was fraught with difficulties and led to a less than satisfactory dénouement., UL https://www.jbe-platform.com/content/journals/10.1075/msw.5.1.07mac