Words Cast Wide `Net

0 Comments | Insight on the News, Oct 18, 1999 | by Jennifer Harper

"A lot of words, especially those that appear on the Internet, are ephemeral," she says. "There's 1,000 to 5,000 new words a year, depending on what's going on in the world. It's been a particularly fecund period in word generation since the mid-eighties, when computer science started generating its words and new medical, technological and genetic discoveries came to the fore."

But because modern-day knowledge tends to be miles wide and inches deep, her dictionary includes details on the history of a word. For instance, the cultural notes on the word "Camelot" not only refer to the sixth-century English court of the legendary King Arthur but also to the 1960 Lerner and Lowe musical and to the short-lived Kennedy administration.

"These are things we feel would be lost to students in an era where reading classics is not encouraged," she says. "Nor is composition. It's fun. It's something a browser can enjoy at the same time."

By Julia Duin