二七、《新英字典》

（九月六日）

今日英文最大之字典為《新英字典》（ New English Dictionary ）。此書之經營始于一八八二年，迄今三十余年矣，僅出十余冊，而主任者麥爾雷（Sir James A. H. Murray）已死。全書成時，約有二十二巨冊。此下所記一則，可見其編纂之精而勤矣。

Something of the elaborate method and painstaking scholarship that have been employed in the compilation of the "New English Dictionary" is indicated in the prefatory note by the late Sir James A. H. Murray to the tenth volume of the great work. In this note we are told that the longest article is that on the word TURN, of which the simple verb has 47 main senses and 65 subsenses. There are also 25 senses in special phrases, e. g. turn the scale, turn colour … and 16 combinations with adverbs, e. g. turn about, turn in … many of which exceed the average length of main words (thus, turn up has itself no fewer than 27 senses), so that the total number of sense-division, explained and illustrated under this verb is 286. No one will be surprised, therefore, that the analysis of the signification of this word, with the arrangement and illustration of its various meanings, has occupied nearly three months, and that the results, although compressed to a minimum, fill 36 columns.

〔中譯〕

在《新英字典》第十冊之序言中，詹姆斯·A·H·麥爾雷先生指出，編輯此本巨著所采用之方法是經過精心設計的，所運用之學識是相當廣博與艱辛的。他告訴我們，本字典中最長之詞條乃單詞TURN，這個簡明之動詞有四十七條主要詞義，六十五條次要詞義，還有二十五種慣用法，如trun the scale，turn colour，還有十六種與副詞之搭配用法，如trun about，trun in，其中有許多用法之釋義已經超過某些主要單詞釋義之平均數(shù)（例如，turn up本身的釋義已不下于二十七種），以至于屬此動詞詞條下用來解釋，舉例之釋義總數(shù)已達二百八十六條。對于此動詞之詞義解析，以及其各種不同意義之安排與說明，此項工作花去差不多三個月的時間；最后，再將其盡量壓縮成三十六欄。明白這件事情之后，讀者就不會感到那么的驚訝。