How do you look up the spelling of a word in the dictionary if you don’t know how to spell it?
The question has long mystified poor spellers, but Victoria Neufeldt handles such questions with aplomb.
She writes dictionaries for a living.
“Of course you have to know some words, or you couldn’t use a dictionary at all,” Neufeldt dryly notes.
For some reason we don’t think of dictionaries as being “written” in the sense that novels and news are written, but they are.
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Neufeldt, a lexicographer born and raised in Saskatchewan, has been involved in writing many, among them Webster’s New World Dictionaries and Merriam-Webster’s Primary Dictionary.
The Webster name is practically synonymous with dictionaries, but many publishers merely borrow it to lend credibility, Neufeldt recently explained to an audience of editors. In some cases the “Webster” in the title is the only connection to the famous Noah Webster, who wrote the first basic dictionary in 1783 and followed it with a major work in 1828.
As for the writing itself, it’s complex, once the process is explained. Which words do you include and which do you leave out?
When you list the definitions, do you start with the historic meaning and work toward the present? Or do you start with the most common meaning and follow that with the more arcane?
If the latter, how do you decide which meaning is most common? Neufeldt used the word “lace” to illustrate. Is the most common meaning the noun, meaning the intricately patterned fabric? Or is it the verb, as in to lace up your shoes?
Do you include slang? Geographic terms? Literary characters? Or do you leave those out to make room for more common words?
One begins to see the complexities.
If you think dictionaries aren’t significant, consider that the recent publication of the New Oxford American Dictionary created a tumult. A foofaraw. Brouhaha wouldn’t be too strong a word.
Editors of that book made up a word as a way to expose those who illegally copy material for their own dictionaries.
Lexicographers soon discovered the imposter. A supposed noun, esquivalience was hiding under the letter E, describing itself as “the willful avoidance of one’s official responsibilities.”
Neufeldt doesn’t advocate such misleading tactics. She holds lexicographers to a high standard. She says they have to love language and have unlimited patience.
“And, a lexicographer has to care whether anal-retentive has a hyphen.”
