Reference Works in Progress

REFERENCE WORKS IN PROGRESS Rl Reference Works in Progress publishes selections from any type ^of reference work currently in compilation. The goal of this section is to use thejournal to make on-going projects more widely known and, along the way, assist the compilers by providing sample materials to the expert public for observation and commentary. Samples are solicited from any linguistically-relevant reference work in progress — general purpose or specialized monolingual or multilingual dictionaries, encyclopedias, visual dictionaries, thesauri, linguistic or linguistically-related atlases, pronunciation guides, on-line materials , style guides, quotation dictionaries, even word lists, field notes, and single complex entries. Reference Works in Progress for 2007 contains the M-entries from Herbert Purnell's An Iu Mien-English Dictionary. This work has been in compilation for two decades and is now nearing completion. The sample here offers the readership ofDictionaries the opportunity to view the painstaking lexicography of a non-Western language. Moreover, Purnell has spent much time representing cultural information in the dictionary , and so tiiis work is very instructive for all of us who struggle with the dictionary-encyclopedia tradeoff. Comments on the work can be sent to Prof. Purnell or to the editor of Dictionaries. Proposals and suggestions for reference-work excerpts for future issues are encouraged and should be sent to the editor. Copyright for these materials may be retained by the author(s). — WF Dictionaries:Journal oftheDictionary Society ofNorth America 28 (2007) ...