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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