Are you hip to the language? Or do you get a case of MEGO when you read
or hear new words? MEGO is an acronym that means "my eyes glaze over."
Michael Agnes is lexicographer and editor in chief of Webster's New World
Dictionary. As he points out, MEGO appears in the dictionary. "We constantly
monitor words from a variety of sources. We reviewed our data and determined
that the word was widely established in newspapers, magazines and in conversation."
Agnes and other lexicographers are always on the lookout for new words,
or old words used in new ways. "We add new words to our dictionary about every
18 months to two years," says Agnes. "For each new edition, we might add 150
to 200 new words. Many words come from the younger generation. We listen to
kid-speak."
Lexicographers are passionate about words and enthusiastic about researching
and reporting on them. Brian Merrilees is a historian of the French language.
He teaches French and edits bilingual (French to Latin) dictionaries from
the Middle Ages. He and his colleagues are also assembling a language database
based on old documents that historians and other scholars can use.
Dictionaries have a long history. Long ago, lexicographers developed tools
to organize information so that people could retrieve vast amounts of information
about words and about different ways words were used.
"The history of lexicography is neglected in the history of information
science," Merrilees says. "Dictionaries were the Old World's first well-organized
database and information retrieval structures. Dictionaries are treasure houses
of information about words."
Those treasure houses are used to give today's explorers a wealth of knowledge
about the way language was used in the past, Merrilees says.
"Historians and linguists can consult them to explore the history of how
words were used in social situations, for business, or in other circumstances."
Beth Boda is a freelance lexicographer. Like many lexicographers she sort
of "fell into" the work. She's glad she did.
"I love words," Boda says. "I love to pick words apart, to study them.
I love feeling like I'm getting the essence of something when I write a definition
or give examples of how a word is used. I was astonished at first to realize
that dictionary definitions aren't engraved in stone.
"People write dictionaries. When I'm looking for a definition to a word
like 'fault' or 'go', I look at other dictionaries and can find many different
definitions for the same word. Some are better than others."
Sidney Landau has been writing and editing dictionaries for over 25 years.
Today, he manages the development of North American reference books for the
Cambridge University Press. He's past president of the Dictionary Society
of North America and author of Dictionaries: The Art and Craft of Lexicography.
"Dictionary publishing is a diverse field," Landau says. "Creating dictionaries
for foreign learners is growing rapidly. There's a growing market for small,
bilingual dictionaries, and for specialized dictionaries."
In a hard copy dictionary, space is limited. The print is usually small
and definitions are brief. Outdated words or meanings are deleted to make
room for new words or definitions. It's all a matter of economy.
Lexicographers expertly reduce dense, hard-to-read dictionaries to keep
their size, weight and price under control. That's one of the big reasons
electronic dictionary tools are becoming so popular.
Electronic dictionaries can store much more information and present it
in a very readable format.
But whatever the format, people who love language will be drawn toward
creating dictionaries. It's a labor of love.
"Lexicography isn't about Scrabble or crossword puzzles. It's about writing
and conversation. Lexicographers love to hear the language they're using.
They love to collect and organize the language. We're alert to how words are
pronounced, and to variations in the ways words are used," says Agnes.