韦氏新世界大学词典(英语版第4版)(精)韦氏新世界大学词典(英语版第4版)(精)前言

《韦氏新世界大学词典》初版迄今已有五十余年的历史，据美国有线新闻电视网估计，此书 一至四版累计已在全球销售逾八千万册。
《韦氏新世界大学词典》是被美联社、《华尔街日报》、《纽约时报》等美国主要新闻媒体奉为 圭臬的权威工具书，也就是说记者或编辑如对词语的拼写、读音、意义、词性、用法等等发生争 议，即请出这部词典来作仲裁，以它提供的资讯为准。与同类词典相比，诸如《梅里埃姆—韦伯 斯特大学词典》(第十版)(1993年)、《蓝登书屋大词典》(1996年)及其《大学词典》(2000年)、 《牛津美语词典》(2000年)、《美国传统词典》(第三版)(1996年)，“新世界”*大的特点就是 主旨十分明确：侧重“新世界”；而所谓“新世界”，亦即德伏夏克的交响乐标题“新大陆”，英 文都称New World，指的自然是以美国为主的北美大陆。果然，从这部词典的第二版开始，编 者即用空心星号标出美国特有用词的条目。记得那是在1974年，我们正在沪上编写《新英汉词 典》，苦于参考书老旧，资料匮乏，突然弄到这么一部“新世界”第二版，真乃天助我也，于是 就背着当时在上层建筑领导“斗，批，改”的毛泽东思想宣传队，偷偷开启闸门，注入了大概不 少于千条的美语新词，对其中由短语动词衍生成的复合名词，如fly-by,spin-off之类，由于被 判定生命力旺盛，收录尤为积极。一部在十年浩劫文化专制主义横行期间编成的英汉词典，多数 例证都不可救药地患着“左派幼稚病”，但居然在以后的二十多年时间里不仅未被“扫进历史的 垃圾堆”，还多次得奖，累计售出一千万册左右，在改革开放之初国人大学英语的热潮中起到了 一定的作用。应当说“新世界”第二版是功不可没的。后来，1981年和1984年，我分别在美国 克利夫兰和我国上海与“新世界”第二版主编David Guralnik会晤，除向他表示诚挚感谢外(当 时中国尚未加入《伯尔尼公约》，所谓感谢诚口惠而实不至也)，记得还讨论过美国词典何以多有 移民之后(G君本人是波兰后裔)执掌主编大权等有趣问题。1999年7月出版的“新世界”第四 版中，标注空心星号的美国特有用词已扩大到一万二千余条，是为全书的1／15。
读者诸君如果有心注意一下词典正文中所收的百科类条目，“新世界”的美国倾向或许更见 彰显无遗。不少美国演艺界中人不仅占去一个条目，且往往附有照片作为插图，若比照篇幅比“新 世界”约摸大去一倍的《蓝登书屋大词典》，这些人物即便收录，也不会有照片与之匹配。(试查 阅比照Issac Stern、James Stewart等条。)看到John Wayne咧嘴傻笑或Humphrey Bogart 冲着你阴鸷乜眼，另一方面与却找不到莎士比亚的尊容，醉心于英国文化的读者可能会捶胸顿足 ——纵然人物插图的选收原则似为只收照片，不收画像。在White人名条内，计收美国的法官、 作家、建筑师、民权运动领袖共四人，而澳洲作家Patrick White则一笔带过，连曾获诺贝尔文 学奖的业绩亦付之阙如——好在美国得主亦一概不提，可辞厚此薄彼之咎。又如英国的“披头四” 只附一张早期合影，画面人物叠床架屋，看不清楚who’s who，而美国反文化音乐的代表Bob Dylan不但有个人独照作插图，而且比之上述四人的合影，至少要大一倍，帕瓦罗蒂也望尘莫及 呢。至于附录部分的美国《独立宣言》、美国宪法及其修正条款、美国人常用的手势标志语等内 容，自然更进一步勾勒了词典的美国特色。坊间已有人引进《新牛津英语词典》和多种英版学习 型词典。也许在中国大陆影印出版一种重在描记美语的参考型词典，此其时也。
“新货色”(复数名词news，辞书匠人们的行话)往往会给一部词典打上开明还是保守的印 记。应当说自从二十世纪六十年代初韦氏三版厉行客观描记而非主观规范的编纂方针以来，收录 新词、新义、新用法已成当然，纳新的自由度更是日益扩大，今天，就连向以保存美国文化精华 自诩的《美国传统词典》同样也会在广告中亮出收录的新词来招徕买主，如1996年问世的该书 第三版在《纽约时报》上做广告时，就列出了body-piercing(为挂带装饰品而穿刺人体)这样 一个新词。诚然，以环穿鼻，穿舌尖，穿肚脐等，确是一种时尚，但焉知几年之后风向不会变化； 待到时过境迁，焉知body-piercing不会成为明日黄花，在词汇领域中只占了特定时期流行一时 的所谓“period term”的位置?《美国传统词典》在纳新方面采取如此开放态度，“新世界”自 然更不在话下。主编Michael Agnes曾如此阐明“有闻必录”的原则：“We report language the way CNN reports news，we do not editorialize．”(我们像美国有线新闻电视网报道新闻 一样，客观记录语言，而不妄作评论。)“新世界”第四版收新词7500条，约为全书163 000条的 0．05%，而这个比例正是案头词典重版时纳新的大致“标的”比例。“新世界”第四版收纳新词的重 点领域似多在科技方面，如“4×4”(汽车技术)、“gigaflop”(电脑技术)、“satisfice”(社会科学) 等即是；与此同时，如“yada yada yada”(诸如此类)一类钻奇凿诡的新词，则因据说在实际 使用中并不频现而被撤了下来。(1996年出版的《蓝登书屋大学词典》未撤。)由此可见，“新世 界”收录新词的标准是务实胜于猎奇的。务实自然也包含学术态度严谨的意思。例如美国俚语中 早已存在一个表示轻度不满或困窘的感叹语“aw，shucks”，而今感叹语叠用越来越多，且后随 被修饰的名词，“新世界”因此收入一个“aw-shucks”作形容词的新条目，把词性和词义的转 换一律明确交代于读者，照此处理的美语条目尚有不少，可见“新世界”在推陈出新方面是颇讲 究准确性的。
出版词典“硬拷贝”的同时附以电子光碟，自非“新世界”四版始，但给参考型的母本配上 一册“罗热”式(Roget’s)的类书，却是首创。顺便说一句，把thesaurus译作同义词词典，并 不准确，盖因除同义词罗列、互见、辨异确为主要内容以外，反义词也占一定篇幅，而所谓同义 词之中又包含相当数量的近义词。Peter Mark Roget(1779-1869)是位高人，学医出身，热心 帮助建立学校和学会，发明过便携式棋盘和计数器等，直到七十高龄才开始编写以概念为线索串 组近义词的类书。他一反英语辞书向以字母顺序编排的成例，另辟蹊径，应当说在词和词所表达 的意义之间建立了更紧密的关系，是使形式和内容结合成一体的尝试。“新世界”第四版，上文 已经说过，主要是一部案头参考词典，而有了这么一册罗热式的词汇类书与之匹配，参考功能之 外，又可在一定程度上起到学习型词典的作用，从这个意义上说，主编Agnes君还是颇有些创意 的。只是参考型与学习型要不要结合以及如何结合，是个辞书编纂中的大问题，像“新世界”第 四版这样的尝试，是否一定成功，尚待读者判定。
谨祝《韦氏新世界大学词典》第四版在中国出版!

韦氏新世界大学词典(英语版第4版)(精) 内容简介

本书是《韦氏新世界大学词典》(英语版第 四版)的配套词典，它选择了美国英语中*常用的 5万多个词汇，依其用法、释义并按使用频率列出 了相应的同义词，且以实例详细地分析比较了一 些义相近但不能相互替代使用的词汇的释义与用 法，学习性和实用性都很强。

韦氏新世界大学词典(英语版第4版)(精) 目录

韦氏新世界大学词典(英语版第4版)(精) 相关资料

序言
The publication of Webster's New World Col- lege Dictionary, Fourth Edition, on the verge of the year 2000, is the result of more than four years of concentrated editorial effort and of half as much time again spent in long-range plan- ning. This new edition replaces the Third Col- lege Edition, which had served its users well since 1988, and continues a proud heritage of excellence that began with the publication of the First College Edition in 1953. It retains the many acclaimed virtues of the Webster's New World tradition while bolstering the coverage of the rapidly growing lexicon of contemporary English and introducing important and innova- tive lexicographic features.
As society changes, adapting to technological innovation and cultural shifts, language changes along with it. New words are coined, existing words take on new meanings, pronunciations change, words shift in tone--all part of the con- tinuing process by which a language maintains its vigor and usefulness. The editorial staff of Webster's New World conducts a wide-reaching program of language monitoring to document such change. Linguistic evidence is collected on a daily basis in the form of citations of words and expressions used in print and speech; the pro- gram collects several thousand new citations every month. It is these citations which have served as the foundation for this full-scale, authoritative revision of the dictionary.
The results of these efforts to keep the dictionary current can be seen in the thousands of new words and meanings added in this edi- tion. Ranging from the technical terminology ushered in by the computer revolution to the jargon of professional sports and from the spe- cialized terms that have accompanied America's new-found preoccupation with cooking and din- ing to slang terms that appear to have achieved permanence, these new entries help document the continuing evolution of American English and reflect the subtle interplay between lan- guage and culture. Changes in spelling and pro- nunciation are also covered, for these are no less fluid than the lexicon itself.
Although coverage of new terms is the most obvious aspect of any new edition of a diction- ary, other changes within have resulted from a thorough editorial review of the preceding edi- tion. First, the syllabification of words has been revised. Conservative word divisions are given, divisions that make it possible for a reader to make the passage across line breaks more eas- ily and with greater confidence. It is hoped that this approach may serve as an antidote to the illogical breaks encountered with increasing frequency as word processors are allowed to determine where breaks will occur.
The Guide to the Dictionary has been exten- sively rewritten, not simply to reflect changes in the way information is presented in the dic- tionary, but also to make the explanations pre- sented in the Guide itself easier to access and to understand.
In earlier editions some reference material in the form of lists and tables was incorporated at various places in the body of the dictionary. In this new edition, such material has been increased and conveniently placed in a Refer- ence Supplement located at the back of the book.
Users of the dictionary are encouraged to read the guest essay by the noted lexicographer Sidney Landau. It entertainingly outlines the history and nature of dictionaries and astutely points up several aspects of dictionary editing that may not be obvious to those outside this specialized field.
A reference book that is valued for its breadth of coverage, clarity of style, and reli- ability gains in usability when it is physically attractive as well. A new page design by Otto Barz of Publishing Synthesis, Ltd. has been implemented to improve readability, which is also helped by the use of type fonts specially commissioned for the work. The total page count has been increased. Photographic por- traits of famous figures from the last 150 years have been entered at selected entries, and a center atlas section of four-color maps has been added in the main A-Z section.
For all its many changes, however, this new edition preserves those characteristics for which Webster's New World dictionaries are justly famous: the clarity of definition; the open, uncramped style; the easily grasped pro- nunciations; the single alphabetical listing of all entries that includes biographical and geographi- cal entries, foreign terms, and abbreviations; and an overall user-friendliness.
As are all Webster's New World dictionaries, the College Dictionary is stored in a relational database operated on a mainframe computer. Designed and monitored by Thury O'Connor of Lexi-Comp, Inc., the database system has the ability to output data with SGML tagging, and accommodates contemporary PostScript type- setting systems. Computerization of the diction- ary entries has allowed the editors to ensure internal consistency: every word in every defini- tion was checked to make sure it is itself entered in the dictionary (and thus available for the user to consult). Similarly, the hyphenation used at line breaks was checked to ensure that it reflects the hyphenation shown at the diction- ary entries themselves.
Editorial and administrative staff are listed on page vi. Modern dictionaries represent com- plex collaborative efforts among editors over long periods of time. The staff page credits those responsible for the preparation of the Fourth Edition and lists past and present consultants whose contributions have helped shape the Fourth Edition. Also listed are technical person- nel who have contributed substantially to the production of the dictionary.
All Webster's New World dictionaries strive to embody the innovative editorial principles and high standards first set forth by David B. Guralnik nearly fifty years ago. The editors offer this Fourth Edition in the hope that it will serve the modern reader as well as previous edi- tions have--as an indispensable reference work covering the English language today. We regard it as a scholarly account of the past and as an inviting gateway to the coming millennium.
Michael Agnes
Editor in Chief
Andrew Sparks
Senior Editor, supervising