American Heritage Dictionary of the English …（美国传统词典的英语u2026）.pdfVIP

American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition 2,074 pages. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co. $60 By William G. Connolly The publication of American Heritages fourth edition in September 2000 merited both grins and grimaces on copy desks across the land. The grins were no doubt immediate; open the book and you discover a thing of elegant beauty — headwords printed in a subtle, relaxing green and margins alight with photographs, diagrams, maps and drawings, most of them in full color. The smiles must have grown wider when the rim dug further ino this thoughtful work. Its thousands of definitions — the introduction says this edition has nearly 10,000 new words and senses — leave the impression that the editors aim was to encourage precise but fluid, conversational speech, just the kind that produces literate, reader-friendly journalism. And there are notes and more notes. Nearly 750 of them discuss groups of synonyms and the nuances of their meanings. More than 400 notes deal with word histories. Some 100 explain regional variations in American language, and more than 50 Living Language notes discuss various aspects of nonstandard English. The notes are fascinating, one and all. But those most likely to be helpful hereabouts are the 500 or so that offer considered explanations and advice on the sort of contentious matters over which copy desks are often riven in the wee hours. Geoffrey Nunberg of Stanford University, a consultant to the dictionary editors, says in an introductory essay that the aim of these usage notes is to provide the kinds of information that readers will require to resolve questions to their own satisfaction. Substitute editors for readers in that citation and youll get the picture. Check, for example, the notes on author as a verb, comprise and compose, contact as a verb, disinterested vs. uninterested, enormity vs. enormousness, flaunt vs. flout, fulsome, fun as an adjective, graffiti