Zarf Trug Snye Zax Rax Moolvee

Zarf? Trug? Snye? The opening lineup for the Martian World Series? Not at all: words from the Random House unabridged dictionary. Unabridged dictionaries are exotic, rare creatures. Leaving aside, as a special case, the wonderful Oxford English Dictionary, whose editors intended to include all words that had ever been in the English language, there are only three unabridged dictionaries in English:

Merriam-Webster’s Third New International Dictionary--Unabridged (1961)

Funk & Wagnalls’ New Comprehensive International Dictionary of the English Language (1963)

Random House’s Dictionary of the English Language 1st edition 1966; 2nd edition 1987.

At its publication last fall, RHD-II (so to abbreviate it) was thus the first new unabridged dictionary in 20 years; and early reviews notwithstanding, the lexicographical community is still making up its mind about the work.

Editors of unabridged dictionaries are special sorts of people. Every day, English-speakers desperately try to express in words the novelties that the universe throws at them. They produce new words and use old ones in new ways. The English language, therefore, cannot look like a chalk garden. It is much more like an erupting volcano. At each hour of the day, and during most of the night, millions of words, new and old, rush like lava out of speakers’ mouths and pour into the ears of millions of listeners. The editors of unabridged dictionaries watch intently over the stream of lava, to catch the innovations that pop blazing out of the volcano at the estimated rate of one new word per day. The editors of RHD-II have watched intently and collected carefully.

The number of terms defined in each of the three dictionaries turns out to vary little. Of the three, the Merriam-Webster Third is the oldest. The direct descendant of Noah Webster’s original American Dictionary of the English Language (1828), MW-III was begun in 1953 and published in 1961, and it contains about 240,000 terms. The Funk & Wagnalls, published in 1963, contains about 208,000. RHD-II contains about 175,000. The differences among the word counts can be put down to the inclusion of differing numbers of proper names and geographical terms; it is useful and handy to include such terms in the dictionaries, but there are other, more inclusive sources for all of these proper nouns in separate dictionaries of biography and geographical terms. Therefore, as far as the number of actual terms defined is concerned, all of these dictionaries are about equal.

I should add that these estimates are my own. Dictionary publishers have something to gain by inflating their word counts, so they list as a word to be defined every word that appears in boldface type in the dictionary. Therefore, hopeless, hopelessly, and hopelessness would count as three words, even though only hopeless had a full definition. MW-III claims “over 450,000”; FW claims “over 458,000 terms defined”; RHD-II claims “over 315,000.”

The real differences, the more vital ones, are to be found in inclusiveness and contemporary coverage. Here, of course, the most recent publication, RHD-II, is the best, since it is the newest. However, it is better in two other respects as well: usage notes and etymologies.

Usage is a red-hot issue, and the editors of RHD-II have seized it without hesitation. We all remember the roar that greeted MW-III in 1961 because it seemed to regard as acceptable clumsy modern jargon (remember the savage fights over finalize, disinterested and hopefully ? ) and even vulgar and obscene terms. It had no usage notes, thereby seeming to give its approval to terms that educated readers would not want anyone to use. The American Heritage Dictionary (1969), taking the lesson to heart, convened a panel of 105 usage experts and carefully noted levels of usage and acceptability with such completeness and subtlety that their notes have become standard sources of reference.

The AHD is not an unabridged dictionary, but the editors of RHD-II have followed its lead. In this second edition of their dictionary, they have considerably expanded its usage notes and have carefully defined levels of usage, both in the text and in an introductory essay on usage by Thomas J. Cresswell and Virginia McDavid, acknowledging the work of the late Raven McDavid, the author of the usage essay in RHD-I. The labels vulgar and disparaging are used freely and accurately. (And yes, the Big Dirties are there, all labeled vulgar. ) The editors have preserved a tone of calmness and civilized tolerance in their usage notes, but they have taken pains to see that users of doubtful novelties (such as finalize, prioritize and other - ize words) are warned that some people might be offended by their use. In addition, all controversial terms are treated with sensitivity and accuracy; for example, see the notes on gay and related terms.

Etymology was considerably upgraded in AHD from the skimpy attention paid to it in earlier dictionaries, and here also RHD-II has heeded its example. In this respect, RHD-II is now the best of the three unabridged dictionaries. It gives clear and detailed family histories for each word; it also gives dates for the first appearance of words. Word origins may seem an esoteric issue, one that only historical linguists should bother with, but etymology has unexpected rewards in some areas. In the very touchy issue of disinterested, RHD-II comes up with an enlightening note. As you recall, the problem was that disinterested seemed to cultured speakers of English to have only one meaning: “unbiased by personal interest or advantage; not influenced by selfish motives.” The suggestion by MW-III that disinterested could be a synonym for indifferent infuriated thousands of dictionary readers, and me along with them. Well, it turns out that the indifferent definition of disinterested was the original meaning! I think that RHD-II’s clear and temperate note on disinterested settles the matter.

There are physical problems in constructing such large and heavy objects as unabridged dictionaries. RHD-II has solved one problem of dictionary design but has faltered on another. Unabridged dictionaries are big books. All three unabridged dictionaries appear in one-volume editions, which means that, to keep down the weight, the type for unabridged dictionaries has had to be small and the paper light. However, the designers of RHD-II have managed to solve the problem: The type in RHD-II is larger and the paper is thicker than in the other two. This makes a considerable difference; FW and MW-III (even in the three-volume reprint of 1966) now look crowded and flimsy by comparison.

However, RHD-II has not solved all its design problems. The binding of RHD-II is not strong enough for the 10 pounds of paper in the dictionary. This problem also plagued RHD-I; my copy split in the middle and tore loose from the spine after only a few years of use. RHD-II has the same problem. Why doesn’t Random House spend a few more dollars on binding and do a really adequate job?

Despite this one flaw, however, the editors have done a very good job. They have turned out what is now quite simply the best unabridged dictionary of English.

DICTIONARY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

Second edition, unabridged by Random House Dictionary editorial staff and 400 consultants under the overall direction of Stuart Berg Flexner, editor in chief (Random House: $79.95, regular; $99.95, deluxe edition; 2,478 pp.; more than 2,400 illustrations, line drawings and spot maps; 45 boxed charts and tables; full-color 32-page world atlas, including flags of all nations; ISBN 0-394-50050-4; 0-394-56500