Word MeaningExercise
What advantages and disadvantages might come from arranging the
entries of a dictionary alphabetically?
A typical native speaker dictionary provides substantial information in
each entry. In the entry above, the conventional spelling is given by the
entry word; if there had been another well-accepted spelling, it would have
been included after the entry word. The spelling includes syllabication in-
formation, in this dictionary by means of a raised dot in the entry word.
Syllabication in the entry word tells writers where they may hyphenate the
word at the end of a line of type; it is only indirectly related to pronuncia-
tion and is becoming irrelevant as we rely on the justification programs in
our word processors to space letters for us.
Pronunciation
The pronunciation of the word is given in parentheses after the headword.
AHD uses a mix of ordinary English letters, letters with diacritics, joined
letters (ligatures), and one letter, @, from the International Phonetic Al-
phabet (IPA). The sound value of each letter in the pronunciation guide is
indicated by reference to an English word. This kind of system works if you
know how to pronounce the reference words as the lexicographers expect,
but if you don’t know how that word is pronounced, or if you pronounce it
in an unusual way (for example, according to a non-standard dialect), then
the dictionary’s pronunciation guide may be quite misleading. AHD, like
many dictionaries, repeats the list of reference words on each second page.
Syllabication (or syllabification) in the pronunciation section sepa-
rates the word into its component spoken syllables and typically also in-
dicates stress. AHD inserts a hyphen or stress mark between each syllable
in the pronunciation and marks the syllable with the main stress by a fol-
lowing . For example, the most usual pronunciation of Mongolia is given
as (mŏng-gō -lē-@,.. .).
Learners’ dictionaries typically use IPA symbols to indicate pronuncia-
tion. These symbols have fixed sound values, independent of anyone’s native
language, dialect, or idiosyncrasies, so they avoid some of the problems as-
sociated with native speaker dictionary pronunciation guides. However, if,
like most American students, you don’t know the sound values of the IPA
symbols, they are quite unhelpful. It is important to understand your dic-
tionary’s way of indicating pronunciation, and perhaps to learn a relevant
set of the IPA symbols.