Is a Webster Dictionary from 1957 still reliable?
 

Hy!

I recently inherited a quite old Webster's New Word Dictionary (College Edition) it was printed in 1957, but it's in good shape aside from the jacket.

As I'm not native English(American) speaker I'm not sure if I can use it freely or I should treat it as a precious relic from a precious person (or something in between these two?...)

I would say it's okay to use. English from then is pretty much the same as it is now, the spelling is the same and the meaning generally is too. I would be wary if it says 'colloquialism' or 'figure of speech' or 'slang' in the definition, because those kinds of things go in and out of the language very quickly, for example back then 'square' could mean someone very geeky, but no one uses 'square' to mean that anymore. The majority of words you should be fine with though :)

Thanks for the quick reply!

I looked up these three examples and all of them looked fine to me, but 'square' (as an adj.) means rather someone who's old-fashioned and not geeky (I mean in the dict...), so I shall be very careful while I study it.

I would say that SQUARE also meant someone who was not very adventurous or daring-- DULL maybe or Living in the past. but still geeky I think.

So I've mistaken what geeky means!?? lol
It looks like I'm not ready to use it then. :o

to be honest I am not sure when GEEKY appeared-- maybe someone can enlighten us.

I also think that someone who was considered SQUARE was a person who did not keep up with the times. Not willing to take risks MAYBE.


others may give other suggestions.


Isn't geeky someone who is into science and IT etc etc.

Actually this site explains better about the word GEEK. there is much that I did not know about at all.

Geek - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Square_(slang)

maybe "I've mistaken what geeky means." would be better. OR: I misunderstood." what the word "GEEKY" Meant.

Thanks Dogsbody!

Still lots of learning ahead...

I guess the British and the American English are closer to each-other than they were in the past.
The person from who I inherited the dictionary, told me that she was given the book by her American friend, who instead of constantly correcting and quarreling over her mistakes bought and sent her a correct American glossary. She of course used to learn British English so the root cause of the differences was obvious...

They are in some respects, but there's a lot of words and phrases in one that aren't used in the other, and the spelling/grammar is completely different too. In American they would spell "plow" where the British would spell it "plough", for example, so it's probably best not to assume the two are the same, although I admit that they are becoming a lot closer :)

I always thought it must be so confusing for a non-native speaker, because there's so many versions of English. . . I have to ask - just out of curiosity - which version is most commonly taught abroad? Is American more common to learn than British or other forms?

RobinMASk is correct I am sure.

I believe that what we call a pavement-- Americans will call it "sidewalk"