Dictionaries

This second edition of Sidney I. Landau's landmark work offers a comprehensive and completely up-to-date description of how dictionaries are researched and written, with particular attention to the ways in which computer technology has changed modern lexicography. A completely new chapter has been added and every chapter has been updated and reorganized to reflect the changes. Landau has an insider's practical knowledge of making dictionaries and every feature of the dictionary is examined and explained, with frequent examples given from the latest dictionaries of the US and Britain. A history of English lexicography is also included. The book is both practically grounded and soundly based on current lexicographic scholarship. Written in a readable style, free of jargon and unnecessary technical language, it will appeal to readers who are simply interested in dictionaries, with no specialist knowledge of the field, as well as to professional lexicographers.

'This new version is superb. It gives succinct sketches of all the important dictionaries of English from the earliest days up to now, on both sides of the Atlantic.' The Times Higher Education Supplement, 'Thorough and reliable this second edition (now much enlarged, but still impeccably produced) still is: let us be clear right from the start, it is an excellent book … Sidney Landau's book is an admirable achievement. I have no doubt that it will meet with the same approval as the first edition in its time, from students, teachers of general lexicography, and professional lexicographers, as well as by compilers of technical and/or scientific dictionaries - a role in which it is probably unequalled.' Henri Béjoint, International Journal of Lexicography, 'The book is written in simple language that non-linguists can understand easily … this new edition, like the first, makes good, comfortable reading, with its abundant notes … Sidney Landau's new book is an admirable achievement. I have no doubt that it will meet with the same approval as the first edition in its time, from students, teachers of general lexicography and professional lexicographers, as well as by compilers of technical and/or scientific dictionaries - a role in which it is probably unequalled.' International Journal of Lexicography