An Explaining and Pronouncing Dictionary of Scientific and Technical Words [antikvár]

'.h ,1 I'l ;The authors set themselves the followhig rules :1.Every explanation must be clear to a person who knows little or nothing about the particular subject, and must be made with not more than one cross-reference (shown thus j ) to any other explanation ; but references to additional information may be given at the end. [Entries were tested and rewritten as many as ten times to comply with this.)2.An example must always be given, and also a picture or diagram wherever it may be of any assistance.3.Every explanation must be of such length as is necessary to give an adequate idea of the meaning (sometimes a page, or more, may be necessary) ; but this book is not an encyclopaedia ; it deals with words not subjects.4.Special attention must be given to word-elements (roots, suffixes, prefixes, etc.) so that the reader may be enabled to break up and interpret new scientific terms for himself.5.Words should not be included which are adequately explained by an ordinary dictionary (but certain defining words are included : see below).6.No word may be omitted because it is too difficult to explain, but only because the explanation would take more space than is justified by its importance.The explaining vocabulary used in this dictionary consists of about 2,000 words ; 56 of these are definitely technical (see below). About 120 others might be unknown to a child or English-speaking foreigner ; most of these 120 words are explained in the dictionary. For the benefit of the foreign reader certain bracketed explanations also are included in the text.Acknowledgments are due to the following for their help in checking the correctness of this work : Mrs. R. Gunther (phonetics), Lt.-Commander John Anderson (nautical words), Peter West, M.B., B.S., D.P.H., D.C.H. (medical words), D. Thornton-Jones, M.P.S. (pharmaceutical words and general check) ; also to numerous Museums, Libraries, public institutions and commercial firms for supplying that pronunciation of words which is current among actual users of the words.