Word: randomly
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Samuel Johnson should be living at this hour; the English language has need of him. Though he was never at a loss for words, the great lexicographical drudge would probably be confounded to read the new Random House Webster's College Dictionary. It is bugled as "the New Definition of Dictionary," the "newest, biggest and best...
Those who believe dictionaries should not merely reflect the times but also protect English from the mindless assaults of the trendy will find that the Random House Webster's lends authority to scores of questionable usages, many of them tinged with "politically correct" views. Purists will fume, but what is worse is that such permissiveness can only invite a further tattering of the language -- and already...
...core, the Random House Webster's is a laudable achievement, the work of many excellent minds. It is in the core's wrapping that trouble lies and English suffers erosion, mainly because the editors choose to be "descriptive, not prescriptive." As a result, numerous entries and usage notes, wafting in the sociological winds and whims of the day, are inconsistent and gratuitous, undermining any pretense of rigor, let alone authority...
...Random House; 260 pages...
...last week's release of 60 more hours of White House tapes came as a timely reminder that Nixon is not simply an author and global analyst but an unindicted co-conspirator who is lucky to have escaped prison. Listen to any random conversation, on any day, and the mask of respectable elder statesman melts away to reveal a deceitful, lowbrow, vindictive character, dangerously armed with the full power of the IRS, FBI and CIA, and all too willing to use it. Audit his enemies, he orders. "We have to do it artfully so that we don't create...