Publisher's Synopsis
This collection of essays is mainly concerned with the large historical, period, and regional dictionaries of the modern period. The formidable scholarship and practicality of Liddell and Scott's "Greek-English Lexicon", "The Oxford English Dictionary", the "Dictionary of American Regional English", the "Middle English Dictionary", and the "Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue", and other celebrated works, are re-examined and once more evaluated. A preview of the "Australian National Dictionary" is provided by its editor. A Russian scholar examines the treatment of homonyms in English dictionaries, and two British scholars consider respectively the treatment of polysemy and of English dialects. A scholar closely connected with the teaching of English to foreigners passes judgement on the effectiveness of learners' dictionaries, and the collection ends with a discussion by a Californian scholar of the way in which words of Romance origin are dealt with in English.
