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So monstrous a discrepancy in evaluation requires us to examine basic principles.Just what's a dictionary for? What does it propose to do? What does the common reader go to a dictionary to find? What has the purchaser of a dictionary a right to expect for his money?
既然毀譽之間的差別是如此之大，我們就有必要首先探討一下詞典編纂工作的基本原則。詞典的意義究竟何在?詞典的任務是什么?一般讀者查詞典的目的是什么?人們花錢買詞典后有權期望從詞典中得到些什么?
Before we look at basic principles, it is necessary to interpose two brief statements. The first of these is that a dictionary is concerned with words. Some dictionaries give various kinds of other useful information. Some have tables of weights and measures on the flyleaves.Some list historical events and some, home remedies.And there's nothing wrong with their so doing. But the great increase in our vocabulary in the past three decades compels all dictionaries to make more efficient use of their space.And if something must be eliminated , it is sensible to throw out these extraneous things and stick to words.
在探究詞典編纂的基本原則之前，我們有必要先作兩點說明。需要說明的第一點是，詞典所涉及的是詞。有些詞典除收詞之外還提供多種多樣其他方面的有用資料：有的在襯頁上附有度量衡換算表，有的列出主要歷史事件年表，還有的詞典附有一些家用醫方。這種作法當然也無可厚非。但是，最近三十年來英語詞匯量的猛增迫使所有的詞典都必須盡量提高篇幅利用率。假如要從詞典中刪去什么內容的話，合理的做法是首先刪去這些附加的內容，而以收詞為主。
The second brief statement is that there has been even more progress in the making of dictionaries in the past thirty years than there has been in the making of automobiles The difference, for example, between the much-touted Second International (1934) and the much-clouted Third International (1961) is not like the difference between yearly models but like the difference between the horse and buggy and the automobile. Between the appearance of these two editions a whole new science related to the making of dictionaries, the science of descriptive linguistics, has come into being.
需要說明的第二點是，近三十年來詞典編纂方面所取得的進展要超過汽車制造方面發展的步伐。可以打個比方，受到廣泛贊揚的《韋氏國際英語詞典》(第二版)(1934)和受到猛烈攻擊的《韋氏新國際英語詞典》(第三版)(1961)之間的差別不是類似于上一年推出的車型和下一年推出的車型之間的差別，而更像是馬車和汽車之間的差別。就在第二版問世后至第三版問世前這段時間里，一門與詞典編纂相關的全新學科--描寫語言學誕生了。
Modern linguistics ge, ts its charter from Leonard Bloomfield's Language (1933). Bloomfield's for thirteen years professor of Germanic philology at the University of Chicago and for nine years professor of linguistics at Yale, was one of those inseminating scholars who can't be relegated to any department and don't dream of accepting established categories and procedures just because they're established. He was as much an anthropologist as a linguist, and his concepts of language were shaped not by Strunk's Elements of Style but by his knowledge of Cree Indian dialects.
現代語言學的奠基之作是倫納德?布龍菲爾德的《語言論》(1933)。布龍菲爾德曾在芝加哥大學擔任日爾曼語文學教授達十三年，又在耶魯大學任語言學教授達九年。他是那種開創性的、不僅只屬于某一學科領域的大學者之一，這類大學者從不人云亦云，亦步亦趨，對于一些廣為接受的思想觀念和行事方法絕不因其已廣為大多數人接受便盲目地接受下來。布龍菲爾德既是語言學家，又是人類學家，他對語言的認識不是根據斯特蘭克的那本《風格的基本要素》形成的，而是在他本人對克里印第安人的方言進行考察研究的基礎上形成的。
