Collins German-English English-German Dictionary (review)

162John C. Traupman Dictionary of Chinese Idioms, Editing Group of the Chinese Language Department at Gansu Normal University, Shanghai, Shanghai Education Press, 1978, 889 p., as an excellent new dictionary from China. 'Sometimes these words are italicized (see yamen p. 791) and sometimes not (see "Kowtow" p. 387). 10Chinese-English Dictionary ofModern Usage, Lin Yutang, Hong Kong, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1972, 1720 p.; A New Practical Chinese-English Dictionary, Liang Shih-chiu, Taipei, The Far East Book Co. , Ltd. , 1971, 1384 p. ; Mathews' Chinese-English Dictionary, R. H. Mathews, Shanghai, China Inland Mission and Presbyterian Mission Press, 1931, 1176 p., (Revised Edition issued by Harvard University Press). Terrell, Peter; Calderwood-Schnorr, Veronika; Morris, Wendy V. A.; Breitsprecher , Roland, Collins German-English English-German Dictionary, London and Glasgow: Collins Publishers, 1980. (Distributed by Simon and Schuster) pp. xvii+792+790. With thumb index: $19.95. Plain edged: $18.95. This is the third in a series of new and original dictionaries. The other two are the Collins Spanish Dictionary and the Collins-Robert French Dictionary. The claim is made on the dust jacket that "this is not just a new German and English dictionary—it is a new KIND of dictionary." A similar assertion is made in the introduction (p. vii). While it may be difficult, if not impossible, to substantiate it completely, this desk dictionary contains many features which go a long way toward justifying this claim. The dictionary is intended to be bidirectional, i.e., designed to serve its German and English users equally well. Sense discriminations are given in the source language on both sides of the dictionary, and discriminations are consistently provided for each discrete meaning of every polysemous entry word throughout the dictionary. Nowhere is the user confronted by a bewildering string of equivalents such as one often finds even in multi-volume German and English dictionaries. It had always been tacitly assumed that considerations of space precluded the possibility of supplying sense discriminations for each and every discrete meaning in the target language. The editors of the Collins Dictionary have demonstrated that it is possible to adhere to this ideal without producing an unwieldy volume. The problem was solved by a judicious selection of entry words, with the main emphasis "placed firmly on the contemporary English and German languages, with particular attention paid to the language of everyday communication" (p. vii). Thus, inimical is included; inimicality and inimicalness (found in other German and English dictionaries) have been excluded. Imitator is included; imitatress and imitatrix have wisely been excluded. It is hard to understand why the editor of any bilingual dictionary would clutter the pages with such low-frequency entries as amusable, altisonant, antimacassar, butterage, cacuminal, consuetudinary , declinatory, estimableness, matutinal, piscatorial, pisiform, incivism , malapert, omnifarious. It is the elimination of such deadwood by the editors of the Collins Dictionary that provided them with the space required to treat a wide range of usable words with the thoroughness that they deserve. Considerable space is also saved by the use of the swung dash (~) to represent the entry word. Reviews163 The thorny problem of the extent to which technical terms from various specialized fields should be included in a general bilingual dictionary confronts every lexicographer. A reasonable solution is to include those words and expressions that an educated layman is apt to meet in his reading or to need in communicating with others. This was the guiding principle of the editorial staff of this dictionary. Undoubtedly, some user or other will wish that this or that word had been included. Even in the area of general vocabulary, one can point out that such common words as air fare, check-out counter, fine tuner, oil rig, mugshot, and counter-spy should have been included, as well as those tradenames which have gained such wide currency that they have practically replaced their generic counterparts, such as Styrofoam, Band-Aid, etc. But one can point out inadvertent omissions in every dictionary in existence, whether bilingual or monolingual. The fact remains that the lexical coverage of this dictionary is excellent. Lexical coverage extends to "four-letter" words. There is no evidence anywhere of inhibition on the part of the...