Eleventh Webster

Greatest of all dictionaries is the New English (Oxford). It took 71 years to write and publish, comprises twelve fat volumes plus a modern supplement, contains a history of each of 400,000 English words and is chiefly for scholars (cost: $125).* Nearest U. S. approach to such a dictionary was the Century (now out of print), which appeared in 1889-91 with six volumes of word histories. It has since been superseded by a two-volume edition (cost: $12). For title of best one-volume laymen's dictionary the U. S. has two first-rate rivals. Funk & Wagnalls' Standard (cost: $16) features new spellings, has had for its editor since 1914 the most famed U. S. lexicographer. Frank Horace Vizetelly, 70. But most U. S. citizens still settle their bets by ''looking it up in Webster."

In the year George Washington made peace with George III a young Hartford, Conn./- lawyer named Noah Webster (no kin to the later Daniel) published a spelling book. In 1807 he set his great jaw, sat down to write an up-to-date dictionary of the English language. The spelling book, a best seller, supported him for the 21 years it took to pen definitions of 70,000 words. The first Webster was published in 1828 and its author lived long enough to revise it in 1840. When he died in 1843 G. & C. Merriam of Springfield, Mass, bought the unsold copies and all rights, of his dictionary, settled down to being a one-book publisher. It brought out the 400,000-entry New International, tenth complete revision of Noah Webster, in 1909, coasted along with that for 15 years. But only a dead language stands still and in 1924 the publishers decided it was time to start work on a new Webster. They finished it last week.

New or rewritten on the basis of 1,600,000 quotations collected since 1909 are three-fifths of the eleventh edition's contents. It contains 600,000 entries, lists & defines 122,000 more words than any other general dictionary in the world. Editor-in-Chief William Allan Neilson, president of Smith College, headed an editorial staff of 262, plus 207 specialists for technical terms (Harvard's Dean Roscoe Pound for law, Johns Hopkins' retiring President Joseph Sweetman Ames for physics, aeronautics). To 114 sharp-eared experts went the job of settling the pronunciation arguments of 120,000,000 U. S. citizens.

The New International, Second Edition cost $1,300,000 to prepare. Prices range from $20 to $35. Because there are some 3,000,000 words in the English language, the editors could not hope to include every one. They defined croon and croon song, drew the line at crooner.

*Published for laymen is a 2-vol. abridgment, the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary (Cost: $18). /-In Hartford last week The Literary Observer listed the following accomplishments of human researchers in compiling ''animal dictionaries:" marmosets, 12 words; gibbons, 14 words; chimpanzees, 32 words; horses, ''six words and three kinds of neighing;" cats, 15 words: domestic poultry. "12 words among hens and five among cocks."

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