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Running head: DICTIONARY REVIEW

A Critical and Comparative Dictionary Review


Krista M. Boddy
Colorado State University

DICTIONARY REVIEW

Abstract
This paper is a comparative review of two popular dictionaries, Merriam-Websters Collegiate
Dictionary (11th Ed.) and Longman Advanced American Dictionary (2nd Ed.). The purpose of
this review is to critically analyze these two dictionaries for their functionality in the adult ESL
classroom and to determine if they suit the needs of my English language learners. The Longman
Advanced American Dictionary serves English language learners specifically and tends to
provide more grammatical and linguistic information, yet fewer word entries than the MerriamWebsters Collegiate Dictionary. In the paper, I specifically examine how each dictionary is
organized, including how it deals with derivational forms, synonyms, antonyms, compounds,
fixed phrases, idioms and homographs.
Keywords: dictionary, ESL/EFL/ELL, MWCD, LAAD

DICTIONARY REVIEW

A Critical and Comparative Dictionary Review


In this dictionary review, Ive incorporated the following criteria in my evaluation. I
initially discuss each dictionarys intended audience, the corpora used to create the lexicons, and
provide a brief overview of the front and back matters. I then describe each section in more
detail, especially pronunciation explanations and symbols for each dictionary. I also analyze the
way in which each dictionary organizes different senses, connotational meanings and
collocational information. I next investigate how both dictionaries deal with expressions related
to the head word, including derivational forms, synonyms, antonyms, compounds, fixed phrases,
idioms and homographs. I further examine how the dictionaries handle controversial usage
issues. Finally, I compare all the data Ive scrutinized to come to a conclusion about which
dictionary best serves the needs of my ESL students.
The first dictionary critiqued is the 11th edition Merriam-Websters Collegiate Dictionary
(MWCD). I chose to review this dictionary because it is the primary dictionary provided in the
classrooms in which I currently teach Adult Basic Education ESL. The MWCD dictionary claims
to be Americas Best-Selling Dictionary on its front cover. Its intended audience implies
college students, though the Preface states it is meant to serve the general public. The
collection of words in this dictionary is based upon 15,700,000 citations. The editors used a
machine-readable corpus of over 76,000,000 words gathered from a wide and constantly
changing range of publications.
The MWCDs front matter contents contain a Preface, an Explanatory Chart,
Explanatory Notes, The English Language in the Dictionary, Guide to Pronunciation,
Pronunciation Symbols, and Abbreviations in This Work. The back matter contents include:
Foreign Words and Phrases, Biographical and Geographical Names, Signs and Symbols, A

DICTIONARY REVIEW

Handbook of Style, Capitals and Italics usage, Documentation of Sources, Forms of Address,
and an Index. The back cover page lists helpful Merriam-Webster websites and how to obtain a
free one-year online subscription.
The Explanatory Chart and Explanatory Notes are guides for individual symbols and
descriptions of dates, etymology, pronunciation, synonyms, usage notes, and other details for an
entry. The English Language in the Dictionary, incorporates a brief eight page overview of the
study of Linguistics. The Guide to Pronunciation explains inconsistencies of the English vowel
system with regard to pronunciation and spelling. It also explains how MWCD deals with the
various dialects of British, Canadian and American English, as well as differences among
Northern, Southern and Midland U.S. dialects. Dialect variations are notated as dial var before
an entry definition. The Pronunciation Symbols page displays the MWCD phonemes, including
some IPA phonemes. Some examples of MWCD phonemes for diphthongs are: \r\ in car, \a\
in now, \er\ in wear, \ir\ in near, \r\ in door, and \r\ in tour. An abbreviated list of MWCD
phonemes appear on the bottom of each right-hand page of the lexicon.
The \ \ symbol designates pronunciation information, \ , ; \ is used for variant
pronunciations, while \ \ marks variant pronunciations used in educated speech, but which may
be considered questionable or unacceptable. The MWCD symbolizes phonemic stress with \ ' \
preceding a syllable that gets primary stress and \ \ for syllables with secondary stress. Hyphens
are used to separate syllables (syllabication), while center dots within words (display) denote
end-of-line division (syllabification). The hyphens sometimes coincide with the dots within an
entry word, such as in the word metric \'me-trik\. Parentheses are used to indicate phonemes or
symbols that are used in some utterances, but not others. For example, factory is pronounced
both \'fak-t()-r\ and \'fak-tr\. The schwa \ \ symbol marks unstressed syllables, like a/u in

DICTIONARY REVIEW

abut \-'bt\. When the \ \ symbol immediately precedes \l\, \n\, \m\, or \ \, the following
consonant is syllabic, meaning the consonant takes the syllable as a vowel normally would, as in
\'ktn\ (cotton).
Some words have equal spellings (variants), like ocher/ochre, pollywog/polliwog, and
cancellation/cancelation. The MWCD considers both spellings as standard and notes this by
placing or after the headword. The term also designates the second variant as slightly less
common.
The way in which the MWCD organizes entries is by chronological order from oldest to
more recently written/printed words. All headwords are listed in bold type. The oldest headword
is listed first, with later entries labeled ,, and so on. The entry for like has eight separate entries,
one for each part of speech. It is listed in this order: verb, noun (preference), adjective,
preposition, noun (one that is similar), adverb, conjunction, and verbal auxiliary. Parts of speech
are abbreviated in italics after each entrys pronunciation. Within each entry, there are numerous
other senses listed by 1, 2, 3 and more detailed a, b, c. The verb entry of like lists the inflected
forms before listing etymological information. See the incomplete reprinted entry below for the
verb like:
like \'lk\ vb liked; liking [ME, fr, OE lcian; akin to OE gelc alike] vt (bef.
12c) 1 chiefly dial : to be suitable or agreeable to <I like onions but they dont ~
me> 2 a : to feel attraction toward or take pleasure in : ENJOY <~s baseball> b:
to feel toward : REGARD

There are Usage Notes listed under the conjunction meaning of like. It relates that like has
been used as a conjunction since the 14th century and that it has been used by prestigious literary
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DICTIONARY REVIEW

figures in spite of modern objections to its use as a conjunction. Derivational forms of likely,
likelier, and likeliest have separate entries.
If the MWCD lists synonyms, they are capitalized. The entry for likeness has the
following synonyms listed: COPY, PORTRAIT, APPEARANCE, SEMBLANCE, and
RESEMBLANCE. However, this dictionary does not provide antonyms. The MWCD usually
notes senses with italic dividers as in the following: esp (especially) denotes most common
semantic meaning, specif (specifically) signifies highly restrictive meaning, also indicates less
importance, and broadly designates extended or wider meaning. The MWCD displays
compounds in three ways; space, no space, or hyphen. Some examples of compounds for light
include: light bulb, light-footed, light-fingered, light-headed, lighthouse, light rail, and
lightweight. Compounds and fixed phrases such as light-of-love, lighter-than-air and lights-out
are listed as their own entries.
I was surprised to find idioms, such as rain cats and dogs in the MWCD. Homographs
are listed in historical order as individual entries. The small numerals before an entry denote the
various meanings of bow \'ba\ (vb), bow (n), and bow \'b\ (n). The common collocational
phrase green with envy is listed under the entry for green. The entry for lady has at least five
connotations listed, all relating to a courteous reference, or address of a woman of high social
position. Lexical bundles like ball of fire, rough-and-tumble, and round-the-clock are listed as
individual entries in the MWCD in alphabetical order.
The MWCD handles controversial entries such as the adverb irregardless by using the
abbreviation nonstand to imply that the word is used rarely and disapprovingly. This entry lists a
detailed usage note about the words history, and that the editors believe it should be included in
the dictionary due to its prominence in English speech during the 20th century. Offensive or

DICTIONARY REVIEW

hurtful entries are labeled with disparaging, offensive, obscene or vulgar depending on the sense.
For example, the term gringo lists often disparaging, and piss away lists sometimes vulgar.
The second dictionary Ive critiqued is the 2nd edition Longman Advanced American
Dictionary (LAAD). This dictionary is the primary learner dictionary provided in the classrooms
in which I currently teach advanced and intermediate levels of ESL. My purpose in evaluating
this resource was to gain further insight into which lexicon, the LAAD or the MWCD, is a more
useful tool for my ESL students.
Contrary to the MWCDs massive collection of words, the LAAD has only 185,000
words, phrases and meanings. The LAADs intended audience is English language learners with
a focus on academic skills who desire to understand high-level academic texts. The LAAD
contains very little front matter, quickly jumping to a Pronunciation Table on the back of its
front cover. The front matter also includes a Contents page, Reviews of the Dictionary, and a Key
to the Dictionary. Another significant difference between the MWCD and the LAAD is the
addition of middle matter, which encompasses Language Notes, Full-page Illustrations, and a
Writing Guide. The back matter consists of a Tables section, which includes U.S. States, Capitals
and Postal Abbreviations, Numbers, Weights and Measures, Irregular Verbs, abbreviations of
the parts of speech, context labels, Grammar Codes, Patterns, a complete LAAD wordlist,
common prefixes and suffixes, and Geographical Names. Inside the back cover page is a free ETutor CD-ROM and license agreement, which helps students prepare for SAT, TOEFL, and
TOEIC exams. The CD-ROM also includes a Study Center to improve learners reading, writing,
listening, speaking and pronunciation skills. The back cover briefly names the Longman Corpus
Network, from which the editors gathered its collection of words and phrases.

DICTIONARY REVIEW

The Pronunciation Table includes all the symbols of the English IPA system, with a few
phoneme changes, such as /y/ (in you /yu/) replacing the IPA /j/, due to /y/s similarity to English
spelling. It also lists American English Sounds, such as the /n/ sound in the word attention
/'tnn/. The LAAD sometimes lists multiple pronunciations for an entry, such as data /'det,
or 'dt/. Center dots are used to separate syllables (syllabication), while there is no end-of-line
division (syllabification) used in this lexicon. The stress symbols / ' / and / / are used the same
way as in the MWCD. The LAAD notes unstressed vowels with // (in affect /'fkt/) and // (in
effect /'fkt). The LAAD notes that /l/ and /n/ are syllabic, meaning that each phoneme can form
a syllable, especially when they are at the end of a word and follow certain consonants (/t/ and
/d/). The /n/ in sudden /'sdn/ is syllabic because the vowel sound between /d/ and /n/ is
obsolete. The LAAD uses a hyphen after /n/ or /l/, like in finalist /'fanl-st/, to show that it is
syllabic. This section also differentiates /r/ as a consonant and // as an unstressed vowel
followed by /r/, as in the word coloring /'kl/.
The LAAD organizes entries alphabetically by most frequently used words first. The
3,000 most frequent words in spoken and written English are highlighted in bold red type. All
other entry words are emphasized in bold blue type. A classification label of S1, S2, and S3
represent the most frequent 1000, 2000, and 3000 words in spoken English, while W1, W2, and
W3 represent the most frequent 1000, 2000, and 3000 words in written English. The abbreviation
Ac listed after a headword tells the reader that the word is included in the Longman Academic
Word List. Definitions generally use the 2000-word Longman Defining Vocabulary (LDV).
Words used that are not part of the LDV are written in small capital letters. Most entries offer a
word [Origin:] near the end of the definition, naming the century the word came into use and/or
the foreign language(s) it came from. Run-ons are included at the very end of an entry definition.

DICTIONARY REVIEW

If there are pronunciation changes for a specific run-on, its new pronunciation is listed. For
example, the pronunciation changes for impossible /m'psbl/ with the main stress on the
second syllable, to impossibility /m ps ' blti/ with the main stress on the fourth syllable and
the secondary stress on the second syllable.
Compounds are written as head words with a space, no space, or hyphen between the
words in the LAAD. Compound stress pattern is shown in the following examples: 'bus stop,
town 'hall. Parts of speech are listed in italics after an entrys pronunciation. Grammatical
information is shown in bold within an entry definition. Like the MWCD, homographs are
treated as separate entries with ,, after each entry. If a word can be spelled more than one way,
both spellings are listed after the head word. Phrasal verbs are listed alphabetically right after the
main verb entry. The LAAD notes when a phrasal verb can be separated if the symbol is
placed in between the phrasal verb.
Different senses of words are numbered 1, 2, 3 and so on in the LAAD. Synonyms (SYN)
and antonyms (OPP for opposite) are included within definitions. Helpful Thesaurus Boxes
appear frequently to explain the various senses of words. Labels, such as FORMAL, IMPOLITE,
and POLITICS reveal the context, situations and subject areas in which a word is used. This
dictionary describes both formal and impolite connotations for lady. Formally, lady is used in
order to be polite, but it also is said when talking to a woman you do not know, when you are
angry or annoyed with her.
Fixed phrases and idioms are their own entries with definitions included. The Language
Notes section contains comprehensive explanations about idioms and provides common
examples. It also explains modal verbs and the many senses of each type. Collocations are in

DICTIONARY REVIEW

bold and sometimes followed by an explanation. There is a valuable list of common collocations
such as make/do, give/take, have, play, perform in the Language Notes section of the LAAD.
The way in which the LAAD handles controversial usage issues is much like the
MWCD. For example, the term NONSTANDARD is written in the definition of irregardless.
Some words are labeled OLD-FASHONED, such as the adjective cross (meaning to be angry or
annoyed). Below the entry for unique, a grammar box relates that some teachers consider this
usage incorrect if used to mean special or unusual, but it doesnt explain why. The entry for
geek notes it is SLANG. The term gay-dar has HUMOROUS listed after it. The second entry for
stupid relates OFFENSIVE. The LAAD doesnt address obscene, vulgar or disparaging senses.
I have expanded my knowledge about these resources, through my critical evaluation of
the MWCD and LAAD. I now have greater insight into which tool is more helpful and suitable
for my ESL students. I believe the Longman Advanced American Dictionary (LAAD) is much
more useful for English language learners in the way it incorporates word frequency, grammar,
spelling, pronunciation, idiomatic phrases, classification labels and thesaurus boxes to explain
senses. I especially find the Language Notes section extremely useful for students to have
collocations, idioms, set phrases, phrasal verbs, modal verbs and word formations all explained
in easy to understand language. As an ESL instructor of both academic and non-academic
students, the LAAD is a much easier tool to navigate through and helpful in more ways than the
MWCD. It may not be as extensive as the MWCD when it comes to number of entries, but I will
highly recommend the LAAD to my English language learners.

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References
Longman Advanced American Dictionary (2nd Ed.). (2007). New York, NY: Pearson Education
Limited. 1863 pages.
Merriam-Websters Collegiate Dictionary (11th Ed.). (2012). Springfield, Massachusetts:
Merriam-Webster, Inc. 1623 pages.

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