The fifth edition of the
American Heritage Dictionary, published by Houghton Mifflin, was
released last fall. In the typecast world of dictionary publishing,
American Heritage is the “conservative” dictionary. Developed in the
1960s in the wake of company president James Parton’s failed attempt to
wrest control of the G. and C. Merriam Co., which had recently become
notorious for the publication of the “permissive” dictionary, Webster’s
Third, the first edition of the American Heritage Dictionary was
deliberately marketed as the choice of squares and fogeys.
A
print advertisement for the new dictionary showed a hippie teenager and
said, “He doesn’t like your politics; why should he like your
dictionary?” This tone of square-jawed resistance to the vulgarizing
pull of popular culture provoked jeers in some quarters. American
Heritage was nicknamed the “Goldwater dictionary,” and when that seemed
too generous, linguists took to calling it the “McCarthy dictionary.”
What, exactly, would make a dictionary conservative? Does it define welfare state as “government that fails to improve the welfare of dependants while curtailing the economic freedom of others”? Not exactly. Only in its preferences concerning a relatively small set of disputed usages could a major commercial dictionary be notably conservative. To ensure that American Heritage be notable in just this manner, the publisher established a usage panel of distinguished writers and scholars, including several veterans of the controversy over Webster’s Third: Jacques Barzun, Dwight Macdonald, and Wilson Follett. The group was prestigious and old. Of 95 members, the scholar Patrick Kilburn discovered, only six were under 50, while a full 28 had been born in the 19th century.
Dwight Macdonald, ca. 1950
Bettmann / Corbis
What, exactly, would make a dictionary conservative? Does it define welfare state as “government that fails to improve the welfare of dependants while curtailing the economic freedom of others”? Not exactly. Only in its preferences concerning a relatively small set of disputed usages could a major commercial dictionary be notably conservative. To ensure that American Heritage be notable in just this manner, the publisher established a usage panel of distinguished writers and scholars, including several veterans of the controversy over Webster’s Third: Jacques Barzun, Dwight Macdonald, and Wilson Follett. The group was prestigious and old. Of 95 members, the scholar Patrick Kilburn discovered, only six were under 50, while a full 28 had been born in the 19th century.
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