Webster's New World Dictionary of American English [antikvár]

FOREWORDAs this foreword is being written the final section of the Third College Edition of Webster's New World Dictionary, V-Z, is being sent to the printer. This marks the culmination of over six years of editorial work. It is a milestone in the history of the dictionary, not only because this edition is a major revision of its predecessor, but because it represents a leap from the old monotype method of composition in hot metal directly to a state-of-the-art computerized database and an automated typesetting program. In contrast to the sohd metal type that was created anew for the changes made to produce even the latest biennial update of the Second College Edition, in 1986, the database that underlies this new dictionary is a fluid medium that will serve as a basis for all future revisions, major or minor, as well as a host of related lexicographical projects, both in print and on line, that are still little more than a dream.Due to many unforeseen circumstances, not least of which were the problems encountered in the course of the charting of new ground in computerization, what had started out as a four-to-five-year project expanded into a mammoth, seemingly never ending venture which only on its completion has been seen to have been worth all the effort. The wonderful database envisioned by then editor-in-chief David Guralnik more than a decade ago has become a reality; and it has succeeded largely because of the expertise, determination, and creative talents of our programmer, Mr. Thury O'Connor. Using the highly sophisticated database management system of Information Dimensions, Inc. as a basis, he developed many subtle and delightful special applications to meet the unique demands for storage and retrieval of lexicographical information; in addition, he developed his own typesetting program, completely independent of the database and with many automatic features that greatly facilitated the enormous and in many respects mind-numbing task of getting all that lexicographical information into a printed book.This new edition has a number of significant changes, some of style and presentation (with a resulting updated elegance of appearance for the dictionary page and an improvement in ease of use) and others of content. All categories of terms have been reviewed and in some areas an entirely new approach has been adopted, with a view to making the book more useful for the reader. For instance, the entries for plants and animals have been revised to allow the user to trace the complete taxonomy of all the specific plants and animals listed. See the Guide to the Dictionary, page xvi, for a full explanation and examples.The syllabication of entry words has also been completely revised; the conventional midline dot is retained only for preferred syllable breaks for line-end hyphenation; other syllabic divisions, which should be avoided in line-end hyphenation, are indicated by a vertical hairline. The decisions on placement of hairlines were based on the appearance of a given word on the page; that is, use of the preferred breaks provides an assurance of the least disruption for the reader in the flow of print from one line to the next.Many other areas have undergone significant changes of content, of a kind possible only in the course of a major revision; for instance, the new liturgical language that grew out of Vatican II in the early 1970's is now reflected in these pages; business and commerce, as well as computer science and technology, two of the most fruitful sources of linguistic invention today, have contributed notably to the swelling of the vocabulary coverage of this dictionary The latest population figures available have been incorporated into the geographical entries. Metric units of measure have been used for all scientific data with the common units in parentheses. And so on, throughout the text of this book.Many of the drawings in this edition were newly drawn by Anita Rogoff, and most of the rest were revised by her to clarify or correct and to standardize style. The new technical illustrations were drawn by Patrick Soltis.This new dictionary has more usage labels to assist the reader inthe choice of language to fit the occasion. It must be remembered that these labels reflect not our editorial opinion of the comparative desirability of a given term, but rather our assessment and interpretation of how it is viewed in the speech community as a whole. It is not the lexicographer's mandate to pass editorial judgment, but only to describe as best he can, using innate and acquired linguistic sensitivity and lexicographical skills (plus a good up-to-date citation file), the language as it exists. Language cannot be separated from its environment and a large part of our most common vocabulary cannot be properly used without a knowledge of the way in which individual words are perceived within a given social context.