Using Dictionaries

[X99Lynx at aol.com]

On Mon, 22 Mar 1999, Nicholas Widdows wrote

<<And Steve Jones replied:>>

I know Steve Jones and he has no opinion on dictionaries.

<<Tsk tsk, these American dictionaries. My British one resolves the
confusion,...>>

This gentle condescension is still delighful after all these years.

<<...but "fixing the meaning of" is what _no_ good dictionary these days does,
though most people still think they should. Or think they still should. To
complete the triolet, "determining with precision" is what I'm doing now.>>

And of course the "better" modern American dictionaries do awkwardly attempt
to affect this semblence of propriety.  But it's a facade, revealed in the
definitions themselves ("dictionary definition") and blissfully disregarded on
the ground floor in everything from the Dictionaries of Sports Terms to
translating dictionaries.  "Glossaries" and "Vocabularies" are by tradition
not something you buy, but rather are bonuses found in the back of books.

Needless to say, there were few other ways or no other ways to "fix the
meaning" of words in America than going to the dictionary.  As to why
meanings, spellings (or, later, pronounciations) had to be "fixed" - even
arbitrarily by the dictionary editor as language umpire - well, that goes to
the whole issue of standardization.  (I was surprised - why I don't know -
when a while back I saw a "Dictionary of the Speech of the American South"
from the 1850's or 60's give a pronunciation of "rights" as "rats.")

Despite these opinions on what the proper role of the dictionary should be,
such a statement of policy does not provide any alternative to get the
"definitive" meaning of a word - which on game shows and in arguments about
meanings or spellings are always settled by the final and official authority -
a dictionary (sometimes in exchange for promotional considerations.)

Standardization has many vehicles.  It may be inappropriate for dictionaries
to "fix the meaning" of words in terms of scholarship.  But it is inaccurate
for scholars not to recognize that dictionaries do fix the meaning, spelling
and sounds of words for many, many users - including for several non-English
speakers I know.

Regards,
Steve Long