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G-O-R-G-E-O-U-S Unabridged. Regular paper thickness edition. 12 in. x 9 in. x 5 in. Tan library buckram, with bright gilt lettering. A bit of scuffing to flat surfaces of boards, rubbing to extremities and a wee amount of corner-fraying to several corners. Judging from wear (and we've handled a dozen or more of these over the past thirty years), this beautiful behemoth appears not to have been used much at all. Marbled edges and some discoloration to bottom of spine. All in all, in lovely condition. Fully tabbed {Keys, A to Z and Addenda, Explanatory Notes, Pronunciation}. . 3194 pp. Just waiting to be paired with a sturdy and elegant wooden dictionary stand. "The greatest corps of editors ever organized was created to make this volume.Every technical subject was handled by a specialist. 600,000 entries. The scope and completeness of material in this book make it a source of information on every subject in the whole range of huma knowledge. It is the key to every science, every art, every branch of man's thought and activity." This is the 1960 and final printing of Webster's New International Dictionary, Second Edition. First issued in 1934, In 1961, just one year after this final printing of Second Edition was issued, the 1961 Third Edition was issued. (See text below as to why the Third Edition was considered by some to be significantly dumbed down, a far poorer offering than the beautiful, uber-comprehensive Second. WRITERS: You want the whole story, unbought, unsold, and unhackable??? This be your baby! Its makers write: "Webster's New International Dictionary, Second Edition is the culmination of a century's experience in dictionary making. For more than 100 years the work of the editorial staff has been continuous. 207 special editors labored ten years to make this a comprehensive, authoritative and up-to-date reference work to serve today's needs" In (it) "the consultant will find answers to all questions, not only about meanings, but also about spelling, hyphenation, preferred forms, the part of speech to which a word belongs, pronunciation, etymology, synonyms, and multitudes of other problems." THIS is a gorgeous example of what we in the office lovingly refer to as "The Monster". This is THE ultimate tool for serious languagers, Despite the Internet, which so often only gives you what you ask for (capturing your queries along the way and feeding them back to you unsolicited, as MORE to buy). This inconceivably beautiful (yes!) BOOK, is the ultimate tool in the shop for those who resist the culture-wide unconscious sliding down into the mundane, mediocre, and thin soup of current culture ("popular" unto gaggage. Craftswomen and men, attend! This is the ultimate table saw, the loom unto all language looms, the tool in your "shop" not that you plug in and pick up, but which you plug YOURSELF into, and it picks you up! WHY THIS SECOND EDITION IS CONSIDERED PREFERABLE TO THE NEWER THIRD EDITION: The Second, (which is THIS book we're offering) we've been told, is actually preferred by scholars over the Third Edition, due to its strict adherence to correct English, its purportedly greater etymological/philological detail reflecting deeper entry-by-entry scholarship, its superior aesthetic and design sense "(Garry Wills in the National Review opined that the new dictionary 'has all the modern virtues. It is big, expensive, and ugly. It should be a great success')" Edited by Philip Babcock Gove, the Third encompassed radical changes which some found unacceptable: ".To make room for 100,000 new words, Gove now made sweeping deletions, dropping 250,000 entries. He eliminated the 'nonlexical matter' that more properly belongs to an encyclopaedia, including all names of people and places (which had filled two appendices). There were no more mythological, biblical, and fictional names, nor the names of buildings, historical events, or art works. Thirty picture plates were dropped. The rationale was that, while useful, these are n.
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