In a message dated 6/15/04 6:25:26 AM, Charles Bracker writes: < I thought the Oxford English Dictionary was the preeminent dictionary worldwide. >>
Not necessarily. OED is the main authority for British English, as spoken in UK, India, and some other English speaking regions. The main authority in the US is Merriam-Webster, with Funk & Wagnalls a close second. The two are not identical, & some of the differences are very funny. A few years ago we had a lot of confusion in the botany newsgroup because what we call a moose is what Europeans call an elk (or vise versa, I don't remember). What was even funnier, some people in England insisted that plants communicate (you know that business of a group producing protective chemicals when one plant is attacked). I insisted that the idea of plants communicating is nonsense. It turns out that according to the OED definition of communication, plants communicate. According to Merriam-Webster, they don't. The poor Canadians are caught in the middle, and Canadian English is somewhere in between. Iris
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