User:Jerzy/Dicts

My three favorite Dictionaries

"Favorite" in that where i do most of my editing, i have them either at hand or in the next room (#1), or a flight of stairs away (#2 & 3).

1. Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary, G. C. Merriam Company, copyright 1977
2. Webster's New International Dictionary, Second Edition, Unabridged, G. C. Merriam Company, copyright 1958
3. The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language [1st Edition of i think 3 or 4 so far], copyright 1981

I guess it's worth saying that i'd buy a used Third International if i found it, and that i don't expect to ever find a used-book-sale price on the The Oxford English Dictionary (down from £750), nor the Compact Oxford English Dictionary in slipcase with reading glass (£275), nor even go for the CD version (£170).

... and perhaps more important to say that as a matter of social value, i revere the Third International as an important change of direction, and consider the American Heritage primarily a pernicious reaction against it. And yet these more prescriptive dicts have clear value that is not fully supplanted by the more descriptive (or "permissive") ones.