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From: nrh@inmet.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.books
Subject: Dictionaries
Message-ID: <1933@inmet.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 31-Jan-85 03:18:13 EST
Article-I.D.: inmet.1933
Posted: Thu Jan 31 03:18:13 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 3-Feb-85 11:37:21 EST
Lines: 27
Nf-ID: #N:inmet:11900017:000:1507
Nf-From: inmet!nrh    Jan 29 12:48:00 1985

A topic that's come up in other newsgroups (notably net.politics)
is dictionaries.  What dictionaries are considered authoritative?
A friend of mine who is a very precise speaker referred to the
"knock-off Websters" when I found a dictionary that contradicted
him (somewhat) on a fine point involving "fewer" and "less", and
suggested that only the dictionaries marked "Merriam Webster" are
"real" Websters.  Are the real Websters better than the fake ones?

I've found my own dictionary "Webster's New World Dictionary of the
American Language, Second College Edition", quite serviceable, but not as
fun to use, somehow, as an old "American Heritage".

When I was given the dictionary, I was told that the "New World" was
used by UPI as its official dictionary.  Does anyone know if this means
anything more than UPI getting an especially good deal from a publisher?
Does anyone know of other choices of "official" dictionaries by other
such organizations?

One "feature" of the dictionary is that the index inserts (so you can
turn directly to the "H"'s) do not begin where the corresponding letters
begin.  Opening the dictionary to the position corresponding to the
insert marked "C" puts one on the page (some distance into the "C"'s)
beginning with "commemorate".  I find this sort of annoying -- does
anyone know if this is now standard practice or more useful than
annoying to people in general?  I gather the idea here is to put you at
the first "dividing point" for some sort of partition search.