the best dictionaries

[Grant Barrett]

Before I started working for OUP, I usually recommended MW10 or MW11 as
a general-use dictionary, but now I just tell people they can eliminate
a slew of bad dictionaries by looking up "fuck." It it's missing, don't
buy. Either the word has been omitted for space reasons (meaning, to
me, that the dictionary has insufficient coverage),  or it has been
omitted for prescriptivist, religious, or moral reasons (meaning, to
me, that there may be other biases of which I am unaware). I've been
looking for a politer, similar bellwether word, but I can't find a good
one. I tried "ixnay" but too many good dictionaries don't have it.

I am about to give a full-coverage descriptivist dictionary as a gift
to my middle-class, Midwestern sister and brother-in-law, and their two
children, and I fully expect all hell to break loose when they reach
the F pages. The corrupting influence of the New York uncle must be
maintained.

Grant

On Dec 15, 2003, at 20:31, RonButters at AOL.COM wrote:

> A friend asked me, "How do you know what the BEST dictionaries are?"
>
> How do professional linguists and lexicographers answer that question?
>