Date:  Thu, 30 Oct 1997 12:50:13 -0600
From:  "Emerson, Jessie J" <jjemerso[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]INGR.COM>
Subject: Re: The "n" word and M-W Collegiate Dict

Are you proposing that M_W do this? Including every sense/meaning of
every word (which would seem to be the next logical progression) in
every dialect/community of English would fall outside the scope of M_W's
collegiate dictionary. That would involve a many-volumed work...like
DARE?

Jessie


    From Albert E. Krahn:
> This is indeed what is in this dictionary, and it is clearly
> incomplete.
> For example, the final sentence is far too weak. The expression "not
> always
> intended or taken as offensive" is misleading.
    <snip>
> What it all boils down to is context: We need to know who is speaking
> to
> whom -- and much more -- to discover what meaning might be intended.
>
> akra
>
>