特别广播英语第 38 课：How Dictionaries Are Made 各类词书都是怎样编成的-2

For a really big job of dictionary writing, such as the Oxford English Dictionary, millions of such cards are collected, and the task of editing occupies decades. 对于编写词典这样十分庞大的工程来说，例如编像《牛津英语大词典》之类，要汇集数百万张卡片。因此要完成这样一部巨著需要费时数十年。

As the cards are collected, they are alphabetized and sorted. 在汇集卡片的过程中，要把卡片按字母顺序排列加以分类整理。

When the sorting is completed, where will be for each word anywhere from two or three to several hundred quotations, each on its card. 分类整理工作完成之后，整本词典不论在任何位置上的单词都应当有从二三句到数百个例句的引文出现在该单词的卡片上。

To define a word, then, the dictionary editor places before him the stack of cards illustrating that word; each of the cards represents an actual use of the word by a writer of some literary or historical importance. 为了确定单词的义项，然后，词典的编者就把能说明该单词用法的那一堆卡片摆在自己的面前；每一张卡片都阐明了某一文学作品或某一重要历史文献的作者对该单词的实际用法。

He reads the cards carefully, discards some, re-reads the rest, and divides up the stack according to what he thinks are the several senses of the word. 词典编者要仔细认真地研读，再根据词典编者认为单词所含有的几个义项将这一推卡片加以分类。

Finally, he writes his definitions, following the hard-and-fast rule that each definition must be based on what the quotations in front of him reveal about the meaning of the word. 最后词典编者写出每个义项的定义，在下定义时，编者必须遵守这样一条不容改变的铁的规则：那就是每个义项的定义编者必须根据摆在面前那些卡片上的例句所含有的该词的词义来写。

The editor cannot be influenced by what the thinks a given word ought to mean. He must work according to the cards, or not at all. 词典编者不能接受到自己认为某词应该有某个义项的这一想法的影响。词典的编者必须根据所汇集的卡片来编词典，不然的话，就根本不必去汇集那些卡片了。

The writing of a dictionary, therefore, is not a task of setting up authoritative statements about the "true meanings" of words, but a task of recording, to the best of one's ability, what various words have meant to authors in the distant or immediate past. 因此，编写一部词典并不是这样一种工作：编者以权威的身份给所有的单词都规定出一些所谓的"真正的词义"；编写词典是一种记录工作，编者要尽自己的最大努力记录下在很久以前或在最近刚出版的著作中，各种不同的的单词所具有的意义。

If, for example, we had been writing a dictionary in 1890, or even as late as 1919, we could have said that the word "broadcase" means "to scatter" (seed, for example), but we could not have states that from 1921 on, the most common meaning of the word should become "to send out programs by radio or television." 例如，如果我们是在1890年或者迟至1919年或者迟至在1919年编写一本词典，我们本来可以说broadcast这个词的意思是"撒播"（例如：撒播种子），但是从1921年起我们就不能再这样说了。从1921年起这个词最普遍的意义应该是"通过收音机或电视机播出节目"。

In choosing our words when we speak or write, we can be guided by the historical record provided us by the dictionary, but we cannot be bound by it, because new situations, new experiences, new inventions, new feelings, are always forcing us to give new uses to old words. 当我们说话或写作时在精选推敲用词方面，我们要依词典提供给我们历史上的记录为准绳，但也不能受词典上的记录所束缚，因为一些新的情况，新的经历，新的发明，新的感情总是迫使我们给旧的词汇赋予新的用法。

Looking under a "hood," we should ordinarily have found, five hundred years ago, a monk; today, we find a car engine. 我们查一下"hood"这个词，就会发现，在500年前，意思是"修道士"（a monk），今天这一词条下的解释却是汽车引擎或汽车发动机。