How are Dictionaries Made?

21 July 2005

Download this program (Right click and Save As...)

Language is forever morphing. It's hard to know the exact shape of a language because it has so many faces -- and it's a moving target. But for a few fleeting moments, it can be captured in a dictionary. Those of us who love language owe a lot to lexicographers, the unsung researchers who make dictionaries, and know that within months their product will in some respect... be out of date.

As recently as a few centuries ago, just one very learned person could create a dictionary single-handedly. But these days virtually all of them are built by teams of talented people. For each new dictionary, and each new edition of an existing dictionary, they collect huge amounts of written and spoken language -- from newspapers, magazines, books, plays, movies, speeches, TV and radio shows, interviews and internet -- and sift them for evidence of how language is being used: What words haven't we seen before? What words are changing their meanings? What words are used only in particular ways? What are their histories, pronunciations, grammatical quirks and foibles?

If you think this makes lexicographers sound like scientists, you're exactly right. Most of them see their primary job as data collecting. They try to capture as accurate a picture as possible of how people actually use a language at a given point in time.

But a lot of people in the dictionary-buying public are uncomfortable with scientific neutrality when it comes to language. They don't want their dictionaries to describe how people actually write and speak. They believe that some language is right and some is wrong, period. And they think the lexicographers' job is to tell us which is which. They want prescriptive dictionaries that omit vulgar language and condemn other words they disapprove of, like 'irregardless' or 'muchly'.

If you're one of those people, you'll be disappointed to learn that most modern dictionaries are basically descriptive. They don't prescribe what we ought to say or write; they tell us what people actually do. Like umpires, lexicographers call 'em the way they see 'em.

That doesn't mean that prescriptive views are completely left out. People's attitudes toward words are also a legitimate part of the dictionary. For example, the New Oxford American Dictionary doesn't forbid its readers to use the unlovely word 'irregardless', but it clearly notes that the word is, (quote), "avoided by careful users of English."(unquote) Because you no longer use words like "fletcherize" (meaning to chew each bite at least 50 times before you swallow), and because you don't talk like people did in 18th century Williamsburg -- you know that language is always in flux. So if research finds a lot of good and careful writers using "irregardless," or creating sentences like "Anybody could look it up if they wanted to" -- using "they" where you might expect "he or she" -- the dictionary can say with authority that it's becoming standard English --even if prescriptionists disapprove.

So don't think of dictionaries as rulebooks. They're much more like maps. They show where things are in relation to each other and point out where the terrain is rough. And, like maps, dictionaries are constantly updated to show the changing topography of the language -- not just with shiny new words (like 'podcasting' or 'lo-carb') but new uses for old words (like 'burn' meaning "record data on a CD") and even new parts of words (the suffix age as in "signage" or "mopeage" -- just a funnier way of saying "moping"). Dictionary-makers put as good a map as possible into your hands, but devising a route is up to you.

Just because a word is in the dictionary doesn't mean you have to use it. And just because it isn't in the dictionary doesn't mean you can't. If it did mean that, there'd never be any new words. And lexicographers might be out of a job.

That's the linguistic thought for today, which comes from Erin McKean, Editor in Chief of US Dictionaries for Oxford University Press. And this is the Five-Minute Linguist at the College of Charleston, in cooperation with the National Museum of Language. Visit us at www.cofc.edu/linguist. And in the meantime, keep in mind that wherever you are, and whatever you do... language makes a difference.

Comments

Posted by: mulatto at September 16, 2005 11:15 AM

Posted by: Ted Edwards at May 16, 2006 03:45 PM