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.