At 12:38 PM 8/19/2002 -0500, you wrote:
>John W0UN and Lew W7EW,
>
>I really eat it up when you cunning linguists have such a stimulating
>debate. John, I'm afraid Lew licked you on this one.
Hi, Ron, I didn't want to bring this back to the Towertalk reflector--Steve
has been
exceedingly patient with me. But I am not willing to capitulate based on your
statement made without any research.
Lew was using the The Oxford American Dictionary, Heald Colleges Edition for
his definitions. Whereas I was using the Random House Dictionary of the
English Language, Unabridged Edition.
From the New York Times review of Lew's The Oxford American Dictionary,
Heald Colleges
Edition. "The 70,000 entries are compressed ... deliberately
simple...." (taken from the
Barnes and Noble web site).
I suggest that this means that the Heald Colleges Edition has left out
words and also
nuances and details in their definitions.
My Random House dictionary is unabridged and contains "315,000 entries--with
50,000 new words and 75,000 new meanings" The new meanings alone exceed the
total number of entries in Lew's reference suggesting that my reference is
significantly
more complete. Without even mentioning (or am I?) the 70,000 vs. 315,000
entries differential.
Lew is a good friend and we have discussed things off-line. We really
enjoy the
debate both for the pleasure of it and for the sake of the English language.
I also told him my dictionary had 2,500 pages and 315,000 entries (and I may
have also suggested that my dictionary could whip his dictionary) and then
I asked
him what the stats were on his dictionary and he failed to respond. If
anyone has
capitulated I would suggest that it has been Lew! At least on my introductory
point on the plural of "antenna".
And my primary issue on the spelling of lightning remains unchallenged.
--73--John W0UN
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