Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English

Előszó

Preface
Editing a dictionary today—above all, a dictionary of the world language, English—is a highly skilled and highly professional task. Central to it is the sensitive anticipation of the users' needs: and then, of course, devising the best way of satisfying them. When the users are envisaged as predomi-nantly (yet not exclusively) those for whom English is a foreign language, the task becomes still more demanding, since the rangé of the users' pro-ficiency, age, national background, and other variables must inevitably set up formidable problems.
It is precisely such problems that the editors of this Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English have kept realistically before them as they selected a "core" lexicon, the predominant meanings, the terms in which these meanings should be defined, and the supplementary information that is considered desirable. Untrammelled by a previous edition that might prescribe form or content and inhibit innovation, they have energetically engaged themselves in fundamental principles. They have evolved a lucid defining vocabulary which will help the user in two respects: first, his knowing this small set of words (about 2,000) is the only prerequisite for understanding the definitions of every word in the dictionary; second, the strict use of the defining vocabulary has in many cases resulted in a fresh and revealing semantic analysis.
The editors have been encouraged to consult widely with experts in many fields, both in Britain and abroad, and they have had frequent recourse to the Survey of English Usage at University College London. The fact that they combine among themselves expertise in linguistic research, in modern linguistic theory, and in English language teaching has indeed resulted in a further striking feature of this dictionary: a delicate system of grammatical coding. By this means, the user is offered, unobtrusively and economically, a great deal of information on the normál syntactic use of words, so that the typical dictionary entry valuably exhibits the interface of grammar and meaning.
Elegantly compact yet admirably comprehensive, the Dictionary represents a distinct achievement on which the publisher and editorial team alike merit warm congratulation.
Randolph Quirk March 1978 Vissza