In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Alphabetic Order and Disorder Frank Abate Cincinnati, OH Alphabetic order is so familiar and seemingly so straightforward that it is taken for granted. But there are a number of points worth examining in regard to the use of alphabetic order in dictionaries and reference publications, and its use in die lexicographer's office. Throughout this article we will refer to the topic as alpha orderor simply alpha. Ease of Use and Arbitrariness For lexicographic work, it is best to remember that alpha order is merely an arbitrary convention. It is a very handy tool, learned nearly universally in elementary school, and virtually universally understood without need of explanation—these are the reasons why it is so attractive to use. In a dictionary office, alpha order allows anyone to file and find citations, slips, etc. easily and quickly. It is a system that requires almost no training, and can be carried out by entry-level clerical staff. It allows work being done on paper or electronically, and for any reference work, to be tracked and measured. This is of vital concern for accurate scheduling. With all of its benefits, alpha order actually gets in the way of lexicographic work, once one has put away the idea of some simple sorting and filing routines. More notably, it is not at all conducive to organizing, batching, tracking, and editing for consistency. In fact, looking at the language in alpha order means seeing it in random order. Once one Dictionaries:Journal ofthe Dictionary Society ofNorth America 27 (2006), 133-136 1 34Frank Abate finishes one entry, the next could be from (and often is) a completely different field of knowledge, requiring a different understanding and assumptions to absorb the data. In many dictionaries, the biographical and geographical entries are sorted in with the main A-Z, so a word from the lexicon can be followed by a biographical entry, then another word (or several), dien a geographical entry or entries, and perhaps one in a language used in a particular country just mentioned. All this is mixed in (up?) with illustrations, maps, sometimes even photographs. That is truly a random presentation of data, but that is what alpha order yields. The only lexicographer's joke I know of illustrates the arbitrariness of alpha order. I was once editing a high-school level dictionary (alphabetically ) for a publisher when I encountered the entry taiga. I was unfamiliar with it at the time, so was interested to see its definition ('swampy coniferous forest of high northern latitudes, esp. that between the tundra and steppes of Siberia . . .' per the New Oxford American Dictionary (2000); the word is a borrowing from Russian). The next entry was tail It struck me — a taiga by the tail. Well, I was amused. Doing Dictionary Work without Alpha Order With a dictionary file maintained on computer, especially one in a fielded or dynamic database, alpha order becomes one mode of displaying the data — sometimes very handy still, but only one of several ways that the data can be searched, edited, and arrayed. Other principles by which to order, display, and edit data are usually more useful for the working lexicographer. These include order by: • Category (e.g., by labels on specific headwords or senses, such as Slang, British, Chemistry, etc.). • Length of entry in characters. • Number of senses in entry (to isolate long, complicated entries like run, set, take, etc.). • Type of headword (geographical name, prefix, abbreviation, etc.). • Use of embedded labels, not intended for display in the finished work, as tags on individual senses that indicate their field of application (this metiiod was used by the Collins English dictionaries in the 1970s). • Presence of a second (or third, etc.) pronunciation field within an entry. Alphabetic Order and Disorder135 Given a suitably tagged text file or fielded database, and the appropriate software and processing power, lexicographic work is far more efficiendy done using a combination of all the above methods for ordering and outputting data, chosen by the editor-in-chief in light of the assignment . One method, alpha order, is often still used, but is becoming more of an issue for final display of the data on the pages of a...

pdf

Share