Some scholars believe a new war of the words is coming, but not the one that Soukhanov and Agnes envision. Then again, these ancestral voices prophesying Armageddon may be wrong. Among the combatants: Random House, Merriam-Webster and American Heritage. We could be on the verge of an all-out melee, with a handful of book-publishing bruisers fighting for lucrative desk space among students, teachers and office workers. "It will shake things up," says Michael Agnes, editor in chief of Webster's New World dictionaries. When the 1,728-page Microsoft Encarta College Dictionary appears in bookstores next month, "it will start the Third World War of Dictionaries," says its top American editor, Anne Soukhanov.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |