So monstrous a discrepancy in evaluation requires us to examine basic principles.Just what's a dictionary for? What does it propose to do? What does the common reader go to a dictionary to find? What has the purchaser of a dictionary a right to expect for his money?
既然毁誉之间的差别是如此之大，我们就有必要首先探讨一下词典编纂工作的基本原则。词典的意义究竟何在?词典的任务是什么?一般读者查词典的目的是什么?人们花钱买词典后有权期望从词典中得到些什么?
Before we look at basic principles, it is necessary to interpose two brief statements. The first of these is that a dictionary is concerned with words. Some dictionaries give various kinds of other useful information. Some have tables of weights and measures on the flyleaves.Some list historical events and some, home remedies.And there's nothing wrong with their so doing. But the great increase in our vocabulary in the past three decades compels all dictionaries to make more efficient use of their space.And if something must be eliminated , it is sensible to throw out these extraneous things and stick to words.
在探究词典编纂的基本原则之前，我们有必要先作两点说明。需要说明的第一点是，词典所涉及的是词。有些词典除收词之外还提供多种多样其他方面的有用资料：有的在衬页上附有度量衡换算表，有的列出主要历史事件年表，还有的词典附有一些家用医方。这种作法当然也无可厚非。但是，最近三十年来英语词汇量的猛增迫使所有的词典都必须尽量提高篇幅利用率。假如要从词典中删去什么内容的话，合理的做法是首先删去这些附加的内容，而以收词为主。
The second brief statement is that there has been even more progress in the making of dictionaries in the past thirty years than there has been in the making of automobiles The difference, for example, between the much-touted Second International (1934) and the much-clouted Third International (1961) is not like the difference between yearly models but like the difference between the horse and buggy and the automobile. Between the appearance of these two editions a whole new science related to the making of dictionaries, the science of descriptive linguistics, has come into being.
需要说明的第二点是，近三十年来词典编纂方面所取得的进展要超过汽车制造方面发展的步伐。可以打个比方，受到广泛赞扬的《韦氏国际英语词典》(第二版)(1934)和受到猛烈攻击的《韦氏新国际英语词典》(第三版)(1961)之间的差别不是类似于上一年推出的车型和下一年推出的车型之间的差别，而更像是马车和汽车之间的差别。就在第二版问世后至第三版问世前这段时间里，一门与词典编纂相关的全新学科--描写语言学诞生了。
Modern linguistics ge, ts its charter from Leonard Bloomfield's Language (1933). Bloomfield's for thirteen years professor of Germanic philology at the University of Chicago and for nine years professor of linguistics at Yale, was one of those inseminating scholars who can't be relegated to any department and don't dream of accepting established categories and procedures just because they're established. He was as much an anthropologist as a linguist, and his concepts of language were shaped not by Strunk's Elements of Style but by his knowledge of Cree Indian dialects.
现代语言学的奠基之作是伦纳德?布龙菲尔德的《语言论》(1933)。布龙菲尔德曾在芝加哥大学担任日尔曼语文学教授达十三年，又在耶鲁大学任语言学教授达九年。他是那种开创性的、不仅只属于某一学科领域的大学者之一，这类大学者从不人云亦云，亦步亦趋，对于一些广为接受的思想观念和行事方法绝不因其已广为大多数人接受便盲目地接受下来。布龙菲尔德既是语言学家，又是人类学家，他对语言的认识不是根据斯特兰克的那本《风格的基本要素》形成的，而是在他本人对克里印第安人的方言进行考察研究的基础上形成的。