Dictionary Source



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INTRODUCTION
While trying to answer this question: “Discuss the peculiarities of Dictionary Source”. What comes to mind in the first instance is the ability to understand or ask oneself, what kind of source are we talking about? In this regard we can vividly conclude that we are discussing about the Sources of Information. Yes, quite alright, we are referring to dictionary as an information source. For us to discuss the peculiarities of Dictionary Source among the other sources of information, we have to broadly make sure we understand some related terms attached to this question, before we can move further to explain fully what this question is all about. Words like: Dictionary, Peculiarities, Sources and information as a whole have to be explained briefly in this assignment. A Dictionary is a book that contains a list of the words of a language in alphabetical order and also explains their meanings. A dictionary also gives the origin of words, spellings and phonetic sounds, synonyms, antonyms. According to Dictionary.com “Dictionary is a book, optical disc, mobile device, or online lexical resource containing a selection of the words of a language, giving information about their meanings, pronunciations, etymologies, inflected forms, derived forms, etc., expressed in either the same or another language; lexicon; glossary. “Peculiarities” simply means characteristics. Some certain features that make something to be unique in its own way. According to Dictionary.com defined peculiarities as “a trait, manner, characteristic, or habit that is odd or unusual”. While on the other hand, Source simply means a way of getting something be it material or a piece of information. According to Dictionary.com “Source is anything or place from which something comes, arises, or is obtained.
PECULIARITIES OF DICTIONARY SOURCE
Dictionaries have limits on their utility. Earliest usages of words usually cannot be definitively determined from a dictionary. Neither can styling, such as hyphened or open. Definitions are separate from etymologies; to use an etymology for a modern definition is an error. And while dictionary definitions are usually reasonably precise, they are not quite mathematically precise for every word. Classifying a dictionary is by its overall character. For instance, the original Oxford English Dictionary ([1st ed.] 1933) is generally a primary dictionary that is secondary for other publishers or authors, yet reportedly at least one entry in it is not based on an identified source. That entry was provided by the dictionary's editor who had enough certainty of the word's existence to justify adding it without citing evidence. It would probably be absurd to classify that dictionary as less than primary because of that one entry. Likewise, a children's dictionary, generally derivative and thus secondary or tertiary for authors, could have cited a published source for one of its entries, yet it should not be considered a dictionary primary among linguists just because of the one exceptional entry.
A list of important people or of many people somehow involved in editing a dictionary, especially if they're advisors, is not very valuable when judging a dictionary. Because the actual roles of such people are nearly impossible to determine, use other criteria for evaluating a dictionary.
Dialectal, professional, slang, phrasal (phrase), neologistic (new-word), grammatical (about grammar), biographical, encyclopedic, foreign language, bilingual, polyglot, reverse, symbolic, picture-to-word, etymological, thesaural, reconstructive (for long-dead unwritten or unattested languages), dictionaries for professional audiences such as doctors, and other specialized dictionaries have to be judged as do standard dictionaries as to whether they are primary, secondary, or tertiary for other authors or publishers like Wikipedia. Online dictionaries have to be judged like offline dictionaries. Being called unabridged is a little suggestive but not probative and so is the number of volumes. Fame or the lack of it does not matter; some less-well-known dictionaries are especially authoritative. Neither does whether it is new or old, although, if succeeded by a newer edition, it may no longer be reliable for other authors or publishers.
LIMITS ON DICTIONARY'S USEFULNESS
As earlier mention in the first paragraph of the main part of this assignment, It is worth knowing that despite the importance of dictionary as a source of information, it has its own limitations as explain below:
Etymology as modern restraint
Defining a word according to its etymology is a frequent descriptivist error. It seems sensible, but meanings can change at any time, whereas attestable etymologies are only discovered later and otherwise hardly change. The belief that how a word was used at its beginning or in a certain long-ago time and place is how it should be used today, a prescriptivist error, may be valid for some words in some contexts, but not for most of them most of the time. It's not even the case for most words that came from, say, Latin. People have new needs. Language grows with us. Language is learned, therefore cultural, and culture includes other practices, such as slavery. We don't continue enslaving people today just because slavery used to be big. How we ask people to work and whether we pay them changed. Words change, too.
Definitions as precise
Most well-known words are defined only approximately and most synonyms are only near-synonyms. Exceptions with precise definitions include some mathematical and scholarly terms, some new terms, and some terms that are rarely used. But, for example, it's becoming common to place intensifying adjectives in front of unique, as in very unique, indicating that in popular use unique is understood to be inexact, and that pattern is true for many words in widespread use. A definition for nice normally is not exactly precise and that has not stopped most people from saying the word perhaps a few times a day, on average. If precision is desired, generally it's more pragmatic to seek greater precision, not perfection, and to consider using a phrase or a paragraph instead of searching for just the right lonely word.

Dates for words in dictionaries
Some dictionaries give the earliest known dates for a word or for one of its meanings, functionalities, or spellings. Some people mistakenly believe that the word, meaning, or spelling did not exist before that date. However, usually the date is only of the earliest evidence known to the dictionary's editors. Relatively few words, meanings, and spellings are deliberately coined on the record and then widely adopted into English, such as if a chemist invents a chemical and names it. Instead, most words, meanings, and spellings evolve with little notice, often rejected as mistakes before repetition and acceptance. The date may be of only linguistic interest anyway. A word may simply replace a short phrase. To a nonlinguist, the difference may be trivial. Whether a word or a phrase was in use, the defined concept may already have had a handle that people were using before the new word was invented, assuming the date is accurate. So the concept may already have been communicated, and that may be more important than the word.

Hyphenated, set solid, or spaced
The same word may appear styled in only one way in a dictionary but in two or three ways in English texts. The only difference in spelling, function, and meaning may be in the spelling having a hyphen, a space, or neither (set solid). (Linguists recognize as a single word a spelling that includes a space, such as open up in "it's time to open up the store", because open up behaves linguistically like a single word even if a word processor's spelling checker doesn't recognize it.) When a dictionary gives only one of these stylings, the choice may have been arbitrary or change may have occurred over time, but other stylings may be valid. Exceptions are rare; an exceptional set is sweetbread and sweet bread, which have different meanings.

REFERENCES
"In the strictest sense, synonymous words scarcely exist". Standard Dictionary (Funk & Wagnalls, 1894), entry for synonyms or synonymous, as quoted in Webster's New Dictionary of Synonyms: A Dictionary of Discriminated Synonyms with Antonyms and Analogous and Contrasted Words (Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam (Merriam-Webster ser.), [4th ed.] 1973 (SBN 0-87779-141-4)), p. 19a (Survey of the History of English Synonymy, in Introductory Matter); accord, Webster's New Dictionary of Synonyms, id., pp. 23a–25a, passim (Synonym: Analysis and Definition (titular word & colon italicized in original & subtitle not), in Introductory Matter).
 

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