1. Background Information
(1) Webster, Noah (1758-1843) was born in West Hartford, Connecticut and graduated from Yale. He is an American lexicographer, philologist, textbook pioneer, English-language spelling reformer, political writer, editor, and prolific author. He has been called the “Father of American Scholarship and Education”. Webster’s name has become synonymous with “dictionary” in the United States, esp. the modern Merriam-Webster dictionary which was first published in 1828 as An American Dictionary of the English Language. He is considered one of the Founding Fathers of the nation.
(2) Webster’s Dictionaries
The Second International Dictionary was published in 1934. It was based on prescriptive linguistics. The third edition Webster’s Third New International Dictionary) was published in 1961, with Philip B. Gove, a famous descriptive linguist as its editor. It was based on descriptive linguistics.
The Third International was edited by Philip Babcock Gove and a team of 300 scholars who spent 27 years and $3.5 million. It contained more than 450,000 entries, including over 100,000 new entries and as many new senses for entries carried over from previous editions.
(3) G & C Merriam Company
This American company publishes reference books, esp. dictionaries that are descendants of Noah Webster’s An American Dictionary of the English Language (1828). It has been a subsidiary of Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc. since 1964.
2. Text Analysis
This piece is excerpted from an article of the same title in the book The Play of Language. Actually the article first appeared in The Atlantic Monthly in May, 1962. Little is known of the writer Bergen Evans.
The text is a piece of argumentation. The appearance of Webster’s Third New International Dictionary causes a storm of abuse from the popular press. Is it true that the dictionary is a failure? To answer this question, we have to answer another question: what’s a dictionary for? Surely, a dictionary is concerned about words, and there has been greatest progress in the making of dictionaries in the past 30 years. The Third International is compiled on the basis of a new science related to the making of dictionaries, the science of prescriptive linguistics. Therefore, instead of prescribing how people should use words, the new dictionary is trying to describe how people are using words. Therefore, it reflects the change in people’s use of words objectively. Of course, the new dictionary is not flawless at all, there is room for improvement. But it is wise and practical to use the Third International instead of the Second.
3. Structure of the Text
The text is divided into three parts:
Part1 (paragraph1-3): the thesis—what’s a dictionary for?
Part 2 (paragraph 4-30): body of the argument—Facts, examples and evidences are used to convince the reader that the Third International is not as bad as what the popular press claimed to be. Instead, it moves with time.
Part 3 (paragraph 31-32 ): restatement of the thesis
4. Key words and expressions
stature, unbridle, calamity, scandal, deterioration, flagrant, non-word deluge, abominable, throw light on, hoax, interpose, eliminate, much-clouted, much-touted, be relegated to, dynamic, static, unbuttoned, gibberish, cumbrous, caption, abdicate, bombination, admonish, man-in-the-street attitude, booby, the fine print, gyp, raise one’s blood pressure
5. Analysis of Rhetorical Devices
sarcasm, antithesis, alliteration, metonymy, synecdoche, assonance
6. Writing Techniques
1) Simple, precise language
2) A lot of examples and facts are used by the author to make his argument objective, more persuasive and convincing.
3) Typical argumentative writing: a debatable point, sufficient evidence, good and clear logic, an honest and friendly attitude
