The Nonlexical and the Encyclopedic

Abstract

1:E EDITORS OF THE G. AND C. MERRIAM CO. have been asked over and over again to explain why thousands of words became obsolete between 1934, the date of the first printing of Webster's New International Dictionary, Second Edition, and 1961, the publication date of Webster's Third New International Dictionary. Specifically, we have been asked to explain how the Third Edition can have 50,000 new words and yet have 100,000 less words than the Second Edition. The questioners sometimes even cite a 1959 or 1960printing of the Second Edition, and want to knO\vwhy these words became suddenly out of date. The questions, so phrased, are unanswerable, for no suddenness is involved. For over 100 years the vocabulary of Merriam-Webster unabridged dictionaries had increased without any considerable pressure for a thorough review of the evidence for currency. When it became practically indisputable that the physical bulk of the Second Edition with its 3393 pages and its thickness of five inches could not expand enough to take in 50,000 new words and 50,000 new senses of old words, a number of relevant editorial decisions had to be made. These inevitable decisions emerged gradually as soon as the Second Edition began in 1939adding supplementary matter especially in the addenda section of new words that is, words new to the dictionary whether neologisms or not and in the gazetteer. When Webster's Biographical Dictionary was published in 1943 and Webster,s Geographical Dictionary in 1949, anyone might have foreseen that the biographical and geographical sections were going to be omitted from the next unabridged dictionary. It seems in order now to let interested dictionary users know the full nature of the change. The following numbered paragraphs, mutatis mutandis, are from a directive issued in October, 1954: