Enter the exciting world of word listing
CHETNA DUA
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Get ready to learn about how a dictionary is compiled.
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We use them as our safest guide to a language. Whether writers, students, teachers, or beginners, a dictionary is their most trusted companion. Have you ever wondered what goes into the making of this record of words?
To throw some light at the enormous task of word listing, the Ratna Sagar group organised a talk by Dr. Elaine Higgelton, Editorial Director of Collins group, at the India International Centre recently. The hall was abuzz with discussions among principals and teachers from noted schools of Delhi and the editor.
Different phases
So how have dictionaries changed over the years? “Dictionaries have become more descriptive, colourful and organised. A lot of new words have been incorporated in keeping with the new language trends. Some words which are no longer in use, like aerometer and air vehicle, have been removed while others have changed their meaning or context.” She named ‘mobile' and ‘mouse' as examples of the latter.
She spoke about the corpus, introduced in the 1980s, which records the frequency of words used in books, magazines and newspapers. “Before including a word, we also check how widely it is used. Is it used only in technical papers and magazines or is it also used in general language? The corpus is very helpful to track the movement of a word. For example ‘Perfect storm' was used a lot last year, but only in financial papers. So we didn't include it. But when it started being used commonly in the business pages of the popular newspapers, it was time to include it in our dictionary.”
A language is dynamic and changes with society, said the language doctor.
“A perfect example of this would be the word ‘twitter' which has been included in the latest dictionary in keeping with the popularity of the social site. Contact with other cultures, languages and ideas also leads to the creation of new words. For example a lot of French and even Hindi words have been used in the dictionary because of their popularity. Technical developments also lead to new words being coined, like iphone, email, ipod.”
Great impact
What about the impact of short messaging service, popularly known as SMS on the language? “SMS language is definitely having an impact on English with words like “mwah”, a sms representation of an air kiss being incorporated in the dictionary because of their popularity. However I don't think the SMS language and spellings are going to completely replace the official spellings. Both the forms are going to co-exist for different purposes,” she said, putting to rest the anxiety of many teachers and parents.
What about the inclusion of swear words in a dictionary? “We try to not include them in the dictionaries for school children and learners. Even in the higher dictionary, we label them as offensive,” she said before signing off.
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