Word: merriam
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...heirs sold the rights to Printers George and Charles Merriam of Springfield, Mass., but the Merriams failed to get sole right to Webster's name, which is now in the public domain -hence the modern multiplicity of "Webster's" dictionaries...
That Old Sprachgefühl. The result may pain purists, who will even find four-letter words ("usu. considered vulgar") in the new lexicon. They appear now because the most cultured (urbane, polished) Americans are used to earthier speech in fiction and drama. According to Merriam-Webster, even ain't is "used orally in most parts of the U.S. by many cultivated speakers." Nor could the editors fail to dig cool cats who make stacked chicks flip. Without drips and pads and junkies, who bug victims for bread to buy horse for a fix, the dictionary of 1961 would...
Headed by scholarly Philip B. Gove. 59, a onetime English teacher at New York University, Merriam-Webster's Ph.D.-proud editors toil in a Georgian edifice in Springfield, Mass., that looks more like a college library than a company HQ. They began collecting a new batch of commonly used words before their last edition came out (complete with a misspelling-Brünnehilde...
...nnhilde-that competitors ignorantly cribbed). They used a worldwide network of "word watchers"-avid amateurs with Sprachgefühl (feeling for speech), who constantly peruse novels, menus, labels, ticket stubs, and even small-town news paper accounts of obscure murders. The head of Merriam's own shipping department, for example, is the part-time scholar who netted piggyback, as used in railroad freight hauling...
Indestructible Bones. Whenever word watchers spotted a new usage, editors filled out a "citation slip"-6,200,000 in all-to record its frequency and nuances. Words that got enough "cits" (pronounced sites) were discussed with 'Merriam's 200 outside consultants, who cover every field, from Knots and Logic. Mosses and Liverworts, to Cocktails and Girl Guiding. Their expert opinion clarified each new definition...