The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Current English [antikvár]

PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION The publication of the Supplement to the Oxford English Dictionary in November 1933 makes important additions to the material which it is the aim of this book, as a dictionary of the living language, to present. This new edition is distinguished partly by changes in the text, but chiefly by supplementary articles in extensive Addenda, the scope of which is explained on p. 1446. Mr H. W. Fowler entrusted me with the preparation of this edition in February 1933, and imtil his death on the 26th December of that year I had the privilege of his guidance. H. G. Le M., 1934. From the pkeface to the second edition Wf HEN we began, more than twenty years ago, the work that V V took shape as The Concise Oxford Dictionary, we were plunging into the sea of lexicography without having been first taught to swim. But lexicography for us was fortunately of the minor or dependent kind; and, fortunately also, the time was one at which the major or firsthand kind was reaching greater excellence than ever before, and the Oxford English Dictionary, four-fifths completed, already provided popularizers with unlimited material. The object we set before us, hinted at by the word current on our title-page, was to present as vivid a picture as the small dictionary could be made to give of the English that was being spoken and written at the time. The vividness was to be secured by allotting space to words more nearly in proportion to the frequency and variety of their use, and consequently to their practical value, than had been the custom; and further by an unprecedented abundance of illustrative quotation; define, and your reader getB a silhouette; illustrate, and he has it 'in the roundThat at least was our belief; and we hailed as confirmation of it one or two letters from persons unknown congratulating us on having 'produced a live dictionary', or 'treating English at last as a living language'. A living language, however, does not remain unchanged through twenty years and a great war; our picture has needed, and received, a good deal of retouching before being again exhibited m public. The original preface follows, with no change except the interpolation, in square brackets, of some necessary comments. h. w. 1929.