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Dialect and Other Usage Labels in W3 E.W. Oilman There is no one left at Merriam-Webster who knows how the decisions about labeling in Webster's Third New International Dictionary (W3) were reached. All that now survives is a collection of rules and prohibitions contained within a 40-odd page memorandum headed "Usage Orientation."1 My copy of this is generously supplied with additional notations in red, black, purple, and green pencil made by the editor who had it before me. These annotations record specific decisions made in specific instances and many changes of mind from the intentions set down in the original. The rules for editing W3 did not come down engraved on stone tablets; they were in the process of being revised throughout most of the actual editing of the book. The labels that we are interested in were only one part of Philip B. Gove's system of usage orientation. Usage orientation was intended to provide the dictionary user with information about limitations on the use, status, or distribution of the entry word. There were to be three mechanisms for presenting this information: an italic label, an italic guide phrase (essentially just a longer label) and a usage note appended to the end of die definition. Usage notes were often enhanced by verbal illustrations, and doubtless were replaced by them at times, such as when an editor wanted to show a wide range of co-occurrence 1I have assumed throughout that the opinions expressed in the directive were Gove's, although the bulk of the directive was written by Daniel Cook, a member of that group of editors I refer to as Gove's brain trust. Many of the editorial directives for W3, referred to as memos in-house, seem to have been assigned to various editors to write. The preliminary versions were then reviewed, perhaps edited, and approved by Gove before they were typed and mimeographed for distribution. I do not know how or under what circumstances these assignments were made. Dialect and Other Usage Labels in W3161 for an entry word. The label was the most general, or, perhaps, the least specific of the three basic mechanisms. Guide phrases were more specific ; since there were no labels for cities or states, a guide phrase such as "in Baltimore" would serve the purpose. Usage notes allowed the greatest amount offlexibility and detail; they could supply more precise information than a blanket label could. They were, for instance, the means by which all offensive and obscene terms were identified. One thing that is clear from Gove's instructions was that he was not satisfied with the way W2 conveyed usage information. He felt that W2 did not rigorously distinguish between a limitation on the use of a word and a limitation on the thing denoted by the word. For instance, he objected to W2's treatment of the second sense of duff: "In Australia , to alter the brands on (stolen cattle, horses, etc.)...." This inclusion of the phrase "In Australia" in the text of the definition, he said, left the reader unsure whether the practice of duffing was limited to Australia or the word was limited to Australia. Now since the practice was not unknown in the United States, the proper treatment would have been to replace the phrase with an italic label standing outside the definition proper to show that the limitation was on the word. Gove's instructions contained many reminders to editors to take care to distinguish between word and thing. In actual practice, W2 editors seem to have been able to use the form of their choice; both labels and introductory phrases were used. Further, Gove was unhappy with the number and kinds oflabels used in W2. He proscribed many of them: "loosely," "improper," "proper," "correct," "incorrect," "erroneous," "humorous," "jocular," "euphemism," "ludicrous," "popular," "gallicism," "local," "U.S.," and "poetic" were among those to be omitted. The "rare" label was also dropped, and so were some compound labels, such as "obs. exc. dial." Most famously, "colloq." was eliminated. Gove classified usage labels into three functional groups — temporal labels, status labels, and geographical or regional labels. I will discuss the first two of...

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