The 12th edition of the Collins English Dictionary is published today, and I'm terribly proud to say that I wrote the introduction. It's beautiful and sleek and black, and it's the largest single-volume English dictionary there is. It's got 50,000 new entries in this edition, something they've managed by clever expedient of making the paper thinner.So now you can look up the word slumbersome (meaning sleepy), or dreamwhile (the duration of a dream), or eyesome (meaning beautiful), or twerk.
You can read a BBC article all about it by following this link. And as they've included the opening of the introduction, I think I shall as well:
There are few pastimes in life as pleasurable and profitable as reading the dictionary. The plot is, of course, rather weak, and the moral of the whole thing slightly elusive; but for my money there isn't another book that comes close to it. In any case, all other books are simply rearrangements of this one, and partial rearrangements at that.
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Christmas presents solved! Hurray for dictionary reading and congratulations on your involvement in this edition.
ReplyDeleteLovely first paragraph.
ReplyDeleteI think the moral is "Understand what you are saying or writing". The majority of internet commenteers could do with getting that moral.
It is indeed fine in looks but surely the large word on the spine should be Dictionary (what the book is) rather than Collins (just the publisher - ouch)? I have an old Collins that modestly has Concise as the large word on the spine. I love its thumb indents for quick searching. Does the new one have this luxury?
ReplyDeleteOf course, it's not quite accurate to say we 'read' the dictionary, although no doubt mnemonists and quiz freaks do. We normally dip in or consult. Btw, my old Collins, being concise, has mnemonics but not mnemonist. Someone forgot to include it.
I'm still waiting for the sequel.
ReplyDeleteHow about giving us the whole introductory essay for free
ReplyDeleteYes, please!
DeleteAmazon apparently doesn't have it
ReplyDeleteA dictionary is for life not just for Christmas
ReplyDelete