Yesterday I dropped by Percival Blakeney Academy (as I often do) and discovered some changes were impending to my much beloved OED. Well, not my OED but the Children's Junior Edition. It has just recently been revised to update vocabulary. This revision will ultimately eliminate a host of wonderful words in order to keep the dictionary at 10,000 words.
I purchased our first children's dictionary when Clemmie was learning to read because we had only 2 dictionaries in the house -the OED Compact and Pocket. No 5 year old is physically capable of fighting the language, volume size and miniature print of the Compact Edition. While the Pocket Edition is more manageable physically, is the definition of dinosaur enough to hold a child's interest? For the record it is, "n. Reptile (freq. huge) of Mesozoic era." I thought we might need pictures and more engaging definitions. We wanted to have an age appropriate dictionary as a spelling reference, in order to understand new words without parental assistance, to begin obtaining reference skills, to achieve literary independence, and because of mom the librarian's obsession with books and reference materials in general. (Ok-that last reason may be true but is hardly defensible.)
At the Oxford Press website on children's dictionaries there is a Parent's Guide to Choosing Dictionaries. Now, I am certainly no expert in the British educational system, but from the explanation of the Junior Dictionary and its new revision it appears that this is an attempt to follow some sort of national standard for education. The dictionaries for younger children seem less concerned with words and definition and more with providing information to improve vocabulary, understand grammar, and generally provide resource materials for a child's study of the mechanics of the English language.
I am now even more curious-what is the purpose of a dictionary? Maybe I am a traditionalist but I believe that it should provide part of speech, definition, spelling reference, illustrations as necessary, and (although not for younger children) I am fond of the OED's inclusion of quotes that show the progress and change in meaning over time. Yet it appears that children's dictionaries are now going to provide an education as well. Words that actually need definitions and illustrations as the world becomes more modernized and urbanized are being removed in order to make column inches for grammar boxes, vocabulary builders and spelling tips. Isn't grammar something children should be being taught by humans and not boxes in the margins of dictionaries? Don't children learn these subjects through reading and writing, which, ultimately, the dictionary was created to aid?
I will certainly mourn the loss of words such as ivy, magpie and psalm. I agree that children need to know the meaning of alliteration and chronological. I will hope that they all can spell MP3 without assistance. I am puzzled by the removal of elf; is it a more commonplace word than 50 years ago or less relevant in modern fiction? However, I will remain livid that corgi was removed (I am only glad that my dear ones departed to a better place before they witnessed their demise)! PS-Don't tell the Queen.
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
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2 comments:
Perhaps its time to use online dictionary that still preserves the reference function as well as the integration of 21st century technology? May I suggest Merriam Webster's Word Central. Not only does it list your lost words (with the exception of magpie) it even delineates Cardigan vs Pembroke corgi or even Boston, English and poison ivy. I particularly like the game feature as well.
You should have seen Califlower's (#2 boy's) face when he overheard that they'd taken out cheetah, his very favorite animal. If you'd handed him a pitchfork, he would have been ready to storm the publisher's offices then and there. He says, there are still cheetahs so they should still be in the dictionary.
And as usual, you have a much better post on this than I did. I wonder if the bulk of these are sold to the school market, so they are getting more watered down than they might be if they were actually being bought for use as dictionaries.
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