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Wordsmyth English Dictionary-Thesaurus   Design and Features     Introduction. The Wordsmyth staff has developed an original standard dictionary-thesaurus of American English, with features that will appeal to a wide audience. Chief among these features are (1) the clarity, simplicity, and precision of style, resulting in definitions that are more accessible than those of American College dictionaries, (2) the integration of a distinctive "thesaurus" within the structure of a dictionary. These features make WEDT an attractive choice for use in a wide variety of settings in education, business and the home.   In the conception and design of dictionaries, there are always trade-offs that must be made. For example, in 1990, Random House embarked on a revision of The Random House College Dictionary (Revised Edition, 1988). In order to keep their headword/entry list larger than the competition, while maintaining approximately the same number of pages, they had to find ways to shorten entries. One of the outcomes of that process was the considerably reduced treatment of synonyms in The Random House Websters College Dictionary (Revised Edition, 1991).   Among the variables that are manipulated in the design process are word list, usage notes, etymology, definitions, examples, phrasal entries, and synonyms. The WEDT has taken a somewhat distinctive approach to developing a reference work that is concise, thorough, and useful.   Word List. The headword list for WEDT is approximately 50,000. This is at the lower range of college dictionaries, with American Heritage, which has approximately 60,000 headwords. (See Chart 1). The other college dictionaries have 70-80,000 headwords. The reduced size of the list (pared of many extraneous or obsolete entries) allows the addition and integration of a thesaurus into the main body of the dictionary.   If the Thesaurus material were deleted, the Wordsmyth English Dicionary (without Thesaurus) would be quite competitive with the Oxford American Dictionary and the Websters New World Dictionary, Concise Edition, which have fewer entries, but roughly equivalent defining standards. Most desk/secretarial dictionaries, and paperback dictionaries, have word lists ranging from 20,000 to 30,000.   Definitions. The WEDT definitions are clear and precise, and are written in natural and straightforward English. Wordsmyth's language is less formal and intimidating than that of standard American college dictionaries, and its vocabulary is less difficult. Word senses are accurately narrowed through the use of qualifying phrases: "such as", "usually", "especially", "as in", "used as"; and through the use of labels that indicate specialized senses by field: "in physics", "in cooking", "in medecine", "in computer science", "in religion", "in baseball", etc.   Application of our editorial standards has resulted in an average of two definitions per entry - roughly equivalent to the Oxford American Dictionary (OAD), and a bit fewer than college dictionaries, which are in the range of 2.3-2.4 per entry. The more concise defining style has advantages for readability and useability.   Synonyms. The most important area in which the WEDT has distinctive advantages is in its integrated Thesaurus. No other dictionary has an integrated thesaurus. And no Thesaurus has the completeness of word coverage (definitions, examples, pronunciations, etc.) that WEDT offers. The closest comparison is Houghton-Mifflin's Roget's II. (See Þ"Analysis" below.)   The smaller word list allows the integration of a thesaurus into the main body of the dictionary. Other college dictionaries, such as the RHW mentioned above, have been forced to sacrifice word relations (like synonymy) and cross reference coverage, in order to maintain a larger word list. It is our premise that creating a more complex and interesting reference work requires reduction of the core word list. Synonymy and similarity are the first relations in a proposed development plan that incorporates other word relations, like part/whole, taxonomy, instrument, etc.   Examples. Examples is another area in which WEDT has a strength not matched by any of the college dictionaries. Only the ESL (English as a Second Language) Dictionaries can match the WEDT for examples. (See Chart 1) These examples are written principally to help the reader discriminate among senses, to give the reader increased sensitivity to formal variations in the language (verb forms, for example), and to indicate common collocations (for "hazard", "occupational hazard"; for "override", "override the veto", ). Wordsmyth's original examples reflect discourse of spoken English and popular written sources, such as newspapers, magazines, and novels.   Etymology. In order to maintain these strengths, we have had to make the difficult decision to exclude etymologies. These could be added at a later point, as a word relation (foreign derivations) or as a note in important cases. (In his book Keywords, Raymond Williams, for example, has selected derivations of a small vocabulary for extended analysis. This approach might be informative and more useful than bare etymologies.)   Grammatical and Usage Information. Wordsmyth identifies the major categories of grammatical and usage information: a. Special cases of noun-verb agreement: "used with a sing. verb"; b. Prepositions that typically follow certain senses: "usu. fol. by with"; c. Reflexive or passibe-construction labels for certain verbs: "usu. used passively"; d. Identification of words that occur in particular combinations only: "often used in combination"; e. Capitalization and lower-case labels for particular senses: "pl.," "sing."; f. Contextual information about verbs restricted to particular subjects and objects: gallop (of a horse); g. Verb transitivity information by sense; h. Style notes (e.g., "used for emphasis"); i. Variant forms listed as headwords, and cross-referenced to preferred forms (catchup - "see ketchup"; kilocycle - "see kilohertz"); j. Useful abbreviations under headwords "abbr.: kg" (Common abbreviations such as "kg" are also entered as headwords.); k. Field Labels. The context in which a word is used on a particular definition is marked with field labels: for example, "in physics", "in cooking", "in medecine", "in computer science", "in religion", "in baseball", etc. l. Non-standard usage. The WEDT has incorporated the major slang senses of our core vocabulary. But we have not extended this process to distinguish Colloquial, Slang, Obsolete, Archaic, Old Poetic, dialect, British, Canadian/Irish, etc., Historical, Old-fashioned, Rare, and Vulgar. This list (from WNW) provides a more refined analysis than we think is useful to the average user. An expanded set of labels for non-standard usage can be added at a future time. Key to the Cited Works Wordsmyth English Dictionary-Thesaurus WEDT Random House Websters College Dictionary (Revised Edition, 1991) RHC Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (10th Edition, 1993) MW The American Heritage Dictionary (2nd College Edition, 1985) AH Websters New World Dictionary (3rd College Edition, 1988) WNW The Oxford American Dictionary (1980) OAD Websters New World Dictionary (2nd Concise Edition, 1982) WNWC Roget's II: The New Thesaurus (Revised Edition, 1988) Roget's II/2 Roget's II: The New Thesaurus (3rd Edition, 1995) Roget's II/3 Websters Collegiate Thesaurus (Merriam Webster, 1988) WCTh Random House Thesaurus, College Edition (1984) RHT