3. Dictionaries of the English language
The first and most obvious distinction is between monolingual and bilingual dictionaries. The latter normally consist of two parts, Italian-English and English-Italian. In order to asses their level of completeness, the first step consists in looking up some very complex entries (such as get and line from English and piano from Italian). The second step is the control of "cross-references ": if ‘seccare' is listed among the various words that can translate annoy, then annoy must be found among the words that are offered as translations of ‘seccare' (not just dry up, that is the basic meaning). Most bilingual dictionaries deal with everyday language, that is the words in general use. These may include a number of technical and specialist words that also circulate among a wider public and are not restricted to the circles of the practitioners in the various fields.
Some dictionaries, however, also deal systematically either with the language of some particularly relevant field (for instance, Business English), or with those aspects of scientific-technical terminology which are felt to be most useful even when describing EE. On the whole, anyway, specialist terminologies in all fields are now so vast that specific glossaries are more and more numerous. Many of them are bilingual but there has been a remarkable increase, in recent years, of multilingual glossaries. Very interesting examples of multilingual terminological databases can be found on-line in the sites of the European institutions (Community, Parliament, Court of Justice, Council of Europe, etc.), because a fundamental law governing these bodies is that all the official languages of the member states are also official languages of the Community. Over the years, the official translation services, in co-operation with the officers of the various Departments, have developed "terminological banks" that include all the legal and technical terms found in all the official documents.
The entry piano was mentioned above as one of those that can be useful to check how rich and accurate an Italian-English dictionary is. First of all, see how the entry has been lemmatised, that is, organised into sub-entries, usually on the basis of grammatical classes (piano is a noun, an adjective and an adverb, with various meanings in each case); the analysis of entries and sub-entries gives an idea of how systematically and precisely the words in the dictionaries have been organised as entries (or lemmas). Most major dictionaries have three entries for piano, one for each grammatical class plus a cross-reference from piano to pianoforte, that is, from the colloquial word to the formal one.
The following is a survey of the main uses of piano; the specifications in Italian are followed by one or more corresponding words in English. You might use this list to verify how good your bilingual dictionary is.
Nominal
1) pianura: plain, flat land
2) progetto: plan, project, scheme
3) di una casa: floor, stor(e)y
4) livello: level, line (at ground line)
5) di un autobus: deck
6) in cinematografia: primo piano: close up, foreground; secondo piano: background
7) in musica: piano
8) in geometria: plane (anche fig.: on a friendly plane)
9) di un mobile: top
10) di una sedia: seat
11) di studi: curriculum, syllabus
12) in geologia: plane, layer, stratum
13) p. di marmo: marble slab
14) p. di scorrimento: slide track; di gru: runway
15) p. caricatore (ferr.): loading platform
16) p. regolatore: urban development scheme
17) p. alare: plane, wing area
18) p. di coda: empennage
19) p. stabilizzatore: tail plane, (US) stabilizer
20) p. d'appoggio: backing plane
21) p. di galleggiamento: water plane
22) p. stradale: roadway, road surface
23) p. di riscontro (mecc.): surface plate, face plate
24) p. di una macchina: table, bed
25) p. inclinato (mecc. raz.): inclined plane; (scarico merci): chute; (cant. nav.): slip; (att. mecc.): angle plate
Adjectival
1) piatto: flat, level, even
2) in geometria: plane
3) sommesso: low
4) non solenne: low (Messa piana Low Mass)
5) agevole: easy
6) semplice, chiaro: clear, plain, simple
7) accentato sulla penultima sillaba: paroxitone
8) liscio: smooth
9) 100 m. piani: the one hundred meter sprint
10) di primo p.: first-rate (e.g. a first-rate intellectual)
11) di secondo p.: minor, secondary
12) piano-concavo, piano-convesso (ottica): plano-concave, plano-convex
Adverbial
1) adagio: slow, slowly
2) in p.: horizontally
3) in musica: piano (mezzopiano, pianissimo)
4) pian p., poco alla volta: little by little
5) con cautela: gently, carefully
6) a bassa voce: softly, quietly, in a low voice
Idioms
Slow and steady wins the race (Chi va piano...)
To take a back seat (Passare in secondo piano - fig. fam.)
Don't make (a) noise (Fa' piano)
The most important monolingual dictionary is by far the Oxford English Dictionary (OED). The 1989 edition, supervised by J. A. Simpson and E. S. C. Weiner, consists of 20 volumes; this edition has been followed by two more, one on microfiches and another on two compact disks. The next release (which, at the moment of writing — spring 2000 — has been announced but is not yet available) will be accessible on-line via Internet directly from the publisher: if you send them your credit card number, they will give you a password… All this means that in few years there has been a change from something that must remain in a library to something that has become more and more easily portable – and the next move will make any physical contacts unnecessary.
The OED organises each entry on historical principles, that means that it is based on the etymology of the word, and the meanings are arranged beginning with the oldest (that may be obsolete now) down to the most recent. An example follows:
(26) Also -or. [f. compute v. + -er1.]
1. One who computes; a calculator, reckoner; spec. a person employed to make calculations in an observatory, in surveying, etc.
1646 Sir T. Browne Pseud. Ep. vi. vi. 289 The Calenders of these computers. 1704 Swift T. Tub vii, A very skilful computer. 1744 Walpole Lett. H. Mann 18 June, Told by some nice computors of national glory. 1855 Brewster Newton II. xviii. 162 To pay the expenses of a computer for reducing his observations.
2. a. A calculating-machine; esp. an automatic electronic device for performing mathematical or logical operations; freq. with defining word prefixed, as analogue, digital, electronic computer (see these words).
1897 Engineering 22 Jan. 104/2 This was a computer made by Mr. W. Cox. He described it as of the nature of a circular slide rule. 1915 Chambers's Jrnl. July 478/1 By means of this computer the task is performed mechanically and almost instantaneously. 1941 Nature 14 June 753/2 The telescope drive is of an elaborate nature; the effects of changing refraction, of differential flexure and of errors in the gears are automatically allowed for by a system of ‘computers'. 1944 Times 8 July 2/2 The Mark XIV consists of a rectangular box called the computor, which might be described as the brains of the machine. 1946 Jrnl. Appl. Physics XVII. 262 (heading) A computer for solving linear simultaneous equations. 1946 [see electronic a. 3]. 1947 [see digital a. 4]. 1957 Technology Mar. 9/1 The advent of the electronic digital computer, with its ability to make simple logical decisions, now permits a further step forward by supplementing the brain power required to supervise the control of manufacturing processes. 1957 Ibid. July 167/3 At present a computer can read, remember, do arithmetic, make elementary decisions and print its answers. 1958 Listener 18 Sept. 413/2 Much work was done trying to ‘programme' a computer to play chess. 1963 Publishers' Weekly 5 Aug. 80/1 Computers are being used to speed up the production of justified tape for the operation of typesetting machines. 1964 F. L. Westwater Electronic Computers i. 1 The popular idea of a computer as an electronic ‘brain' is not entirely apt. Basically, a computer is merely a calculating machine, with the difference that the speed of calculation has been enormously increased.
b attrib. and Comb.
1957 Economist 30 Nov. 807/2 Computer-control methods that have already been applied to certain machine tool operations. 1957 I. Asimov Earth is Room Enough (1960) 11 The decisions on priority are computer-processed. I could in no way alter those conditions arbitrarily. 1961 Times 21 July 3/1 Senior Computer Programmers. 1962 Science Survey XX. 322 Functional diagram of computer-controlled milling machine. 1964 Discovery Oct. 56/2 Such projects form a part of the developing field of computer-aided design. 1964 R. D. Hopper in I. L. Horowitz New Sociol. 322 The possibilities of computer-based thinking. 1964 A. Wykes Gambling xi. 259 He must have a computer-like ability to remember all the cards. 1965 Math. in Biol. & Med. (Med. Res. Council) p. viii, For some time past commerce and industry have been making increasing use of computer-based automatic data processing systems. Ibid. 38 It may well be that the computer-assisted treatment will replace the radical operation of temporal lobectomy. Ibid. 166 The function of a computer-generated sine wave. 1966 Performing Right Oct. 10/1 A veteran computer operator. 1968 Computers & Humanities II. 145 The computer-generated concordance is probably the earliest-developed and most useful application of electronic data processing to literary texts. 1969 Bessinger & Smith Concordance to Beowulf p. xxiii, We considered writing a computer program to ‘translate' the text, word by word, into the hyphenated form. 1970 Brit. Printer Feb. 27/1 One of the unnerving things about computer-assisted typesetting is the pace at which developments take place. 1970 Computers & Humanities IV. 340 Umlauts and upper case letters are coded for proper computer typesetting.
3. Special Comb.: computer-aided a., performed with the aid of a computer; esp. involving one as an integral part of an operation previously performed without one; computer-literate a., educated or skilled in the use of computers; also computer literacy.
1962 J. C. R. Licklider in J. E. Coulson Programmed Learning ii. 217 (heading) Preliminary experiments in *computer-aided teaching. 1963 AFIPS Conf. Proc. XXIII. 305/1 A computer-aided design system for general use. 1967 Cox & Grose Organiz. Bibliogr. Rec. by Computer v. 114 An experimental vehicle for on-line computer-aided editing and reformatting of MARC records to adapt the cataloging data for local library use. 1971 C. R. W. W. Wright in B. de Ferranti Living with Computer 24 The initial reaction when computer-aided learning is discussed is to imagine vast systems using large and expensive computers. 1984 E. P. DeGarmo et al. Materials & Processes in Manuf. (ed. 6) i. 9 It is a natural for the efficient implementation of computer-aided design and computer-aided manufacturing (CAD/CAM) techniques.
1970 R. W. Brightman Computer & Junior College 6 Course work designed to develop *computer literacy — a term describing the general understanding of computers and what they do — is highly recommended. 1985 Personal Computer World Feb. 40 (Advt.), You'll catch it on TV, the star of a series of computer literacy programmes.
1976 Resources in Educ. May 139/1 Benefits of using computers to improve instruction, to provide learner control, and to develop a *computer-literate society are discussed. 1985 Listener 28 Feb. 35/1 Without a clear, logical instruction manual, a computer is wholly useless to someone who is not already computer-literate.
From this major work the Oxford University Press has drawn such minor versions as the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary (SOED) in two volumes (first issued in 1933 and edited by C. T. Onions) and the Concise OED in one volume. Other important monolingual dictionaries have been issued by the principal publishers; among these, Collins's editio major is noteworthy.
The most important lexicographer in the United States was Noah Webster (1758-1843), who introduced some of the spelling variants that still characterise the American variety of English (as opposed to the British one). Such was his prestige that nearly all the dictionaries of the English language published in the United States bear his name. In some cases, the editorial board includes someone called Webster and this is offered as a "justification" for the use of that name (!); in others, they say that their dictionary "is based especially on the broad foundations laid down for American dictionaries by Noah Webster" — this is the case of Webster's New World Dictionary that will be described in the section on encyclopaedic dictionaries. In comparison, all British English dictionaries might bear Dr Johnson's name as a recognition of the importance of this great lexicographer.
Webster, then, has almost become a synonym of dictionary in the U.S.; similarly, Hoover has become the common word for a vacuum-cleaner (also used as a verb: to hoover the carpet), Kodak for a photo-camera and Xerox for a photocopy (again, also used as a verb: to xerox a document), in spite of the strong and amply justified opposition of the owners of those trade-marks. This may explain why, to quote just one among innumerable examples, Webster's Unafraid Dictionary has been chosen by L. L. Levinson as the title for his collection of humorous definitions (published by Collier in 1967): "Altar: A place where a bachelor loses control of himself"; "Epitaph: A monumental lie"; and the like. Nothing there, except the title and the alphabetical order of the entries, can be related to Noah Webster and his work.