The Story of Webster's Third: Philip Gove's Controversial Dictionary and Its Critics (review)

REVIEWS The Story of Webster's Third: Philip Gove's Controversial Dictionary and Its Critics. Herbert C. Morton. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1994. Pp. xv + 332. $29.95 U.S. Herbert Morton has given lexicographers a valuable book about Philip Gove and the great dictionary produced under his direction, that is, Webster 's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language (WS) . Morton makes clear in his introduction that he has written this book not for the lexicographer but rather for all those who, like him, are fascinated by dictionary making. Lexicographers certainly cannot quarrel with this choice ofaudience. The more people who are interested in our craft and who can approach it with some understanding, the better. All the same, if this book had been written for the lexicographer it would have contained more material of value to the profession and less material that is, if one may apply such a term, more glamorous. The material most useful to lexicographers appears in the first two sections of the book, which deal with the life and career of Gove and with the production of the dictionary itself. The last section of the book, accounting for 137 of the book's 289 pages of text, deals with the controversy over W3 once it was published. This controversy formed mainly on how usage was treated in W3 and elicited a great deal of comment in both the popular and academic presses. Another American college dictionary (TheAmerican Heritage Dictionary) was founded by some who took the criticism of W3 very seriously and to a certain extent the book under review is the latest fruit of this controversy. As fascinating as this controversy is, however, I will not stress it here. This review is intended for members of the lexicographical community, and I think it will best serve their interest if it deals with more central lexicographical issues as treated by Morton. In the final part of my review, I will have something to say about the "glamorous" portion of the book. The first question Morton's book might help us answer is what sort of person would be needed to meet the challenge of supervising one of the most extensive dictionary projects ever attempted. We can assume that one would have to combine orderliness, decisiveness, an extraordinary capacity for focused work, and a great admiration of and facility with language. Gove certainly had all these qualities and they are evidenced in him from an early age. We learn, for example, that "during winter [school] vacations he shoveled snow on ten-hour shifts at the railroad yards or clerked for the Railway mail company. He made the most of his time and developed an aversion to idleness" (14). His intention to major in mathematics at Dartmouth lost out to English literature and writing. His father, a physician, was disappointed in Gove's decision to pursue graduate education in English and would not pay for his studies. Gove "went his own way, enrolling at Harvard for the fall term [1922] and supporting himself by managing an eating club [a sort of exclusive Reviews191 Harvard fraternity] and working nights as a proofreader and linotype operator " (15). An aversion to idleness, indeed. Gove embarked on a teaching career at Rice and then New York University that was accompanied by work on his doctoral thesis. He was a perfectionist in this work and actually delayed completion of the thesis at Columbia so that he could improve it. It is likely that had it not been for the war Gove would have continued teaching at the university level, but diis interruption provided him with the opportunity to change careers. Although George Sherburn , chairman of the Department of English at Harvard in a letter of recommendation for Gove, said that he hoped Gove would remain a teacher, he recognized that Gove was attracted to something else, that is, lexicography, and die letter in fact was written to his future employer, Merriam-Webster Inc. Gove joined the only commercial dictionary company in the world that could have made adequate use of his gifts. Merriam-Webster had a continuous history of publishing dictionaries for over a century. It also had a large base...