User:Moswento/The Random House College Dictionary

Random House Webster's College Dictionary is a dictionary published by Random House.

History
The dictionary was first published in 1968 as The Random House College Dictionary. This original edition was used as one of the word sources for the first edition of the Official Scrabble Players Dictionary. A second edition was published under the same title in 1975.

In 1991, Random House changed the dictionary's title to Webster's College Dictionary, and it became the basis of a lawsuit filed by Merriam-Webster, publishers of their own College Dictionary, who claimed that the dictionary's new title caused confusion among customers. As the name "Webster's" was closely associated with dictionaries due to the lexicographer Noah Webster, it was thought that the addition of this name to the title would make the product more attractive to consumers. Previously, Webster's New World Dictionary of the English Language (1953) was titled on the same basis.

1991 edition also attracted criticism, including from Frederick Mish, Webster's editor-in-chief, for the inclusion of entries such as "waitron" (a person of either sex who waits on tables) and "womyn" (as an alternative spelling of "women".

A review on JSTOR A book entry