Dictionaries on line

[william ryan]

Robert Orr wrote: Sometimes the words provided in dictionaries are only
meaningful to a "subset within a subset" of speakers.

A very sound point - an apparent difference of English and American recognition
may well be based on particular areas of perception quite separate from
'national' usages. Generation gaps are certainly significant - I realised that I
was growing old when, a good many years back, I was conducting a translation
class in which I was explaining that 'kartochka' in a specific context in a
Soviet war novel might best be translated into English as 'ration book' only to
discover that this meant nothing at all to anyone in my class. What to do? The
lexicographer has to assume some knowledge on the part of the user. The calibre
of cannon in War and Peace was measured in 'linii', lines - how many people now
know what lines were as a measurement? But that has to be the translation if one
is to avoid anachronism. Perhaps the only answer in a teaching context is to
tell students to use good comprehensive single-language English and Russian
dictionaries at the same time as the R>E and E>R dictionaries.
Will Ryan
Warburg Institute

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