The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Current English (Classic Reprint) - Tapa dura

Excerpt from The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Current English

Again, of the many thousands of old or new scientific and technical terms that have a limited currency some are carried by accident into the main stream of the language and become known temporarily or permanently, vaguely or precisely, to all ordinarily well-informed members of the modern newspaper-reading public. For the purposes of a dictionary that is not to be bulky and yet is to give a fuller treatment than is usual in dictionaries of its size to the undoubtedly current words forming the staple of the language, selection among these intruders is a difficult but very necessary task. The most that can be hoped for is that every one conversant with any special vocabulary may consider us, though sadly deficient on his subject, fairly copious on others the meaning cf many learned words that have been omitted as having no pretence to general currency may easily be gathered by reference first to the stem, which is often the subject of an article, or to another word of which the stem is clearly the same, and secondly to the suffix.

In another class of words and senses the test of currency has led us to diverge in the opposite direction from the practice usual in dictionaries of this size if we give fewer scientific and technical terms, we admit colloquial, facetious, slang, and vulgar expressions with freedom, merely attaching a cautionary label when a well established usage of this kind is omitted, it is not because we consider it beneath the dignity of lexicography to record it, but because, not being recorded in the dictionaries from which our word-list is necessarily compiled, it has escaped our notice we have not, however, consulted slang dictionaries nor made any attempt at completeness in this respect.

About the Publisher

Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com

This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.