Erin McKean doesn't look much like a revolutionary.She speaks softly.She sews her own skirts and writes a daily blog entry about vintage2patterns.She does work out of a basement, but it's got carpeting and good lighting and roughly1,500 books,many of whose titles involve the word“words.”Her suburban Chicago home is not exactly the picture of subversion3.
This week,though,she is slated4to launch what may be the biggest revolution in the printed word since,well,printed words.
Ms.McKean's brainchild5is called Wordnik,and it combines the best practices of the old-fashioned desk reference with Internet innovations.Words can be tagged like a blog entry,their pronunciation recorded and replayed like streaming radio,their related words cataloged like a list of books customers also bought at an online book depot6.When the paper page gives way to the Web page,everything about the way we think of words will change,McKean says.“This project,”she predicts in a quiet voice devoid7of bravado8,“is going to completely revolutionize all of dictionarymaking forever.”
Granted9,a dictionary is closer to a database than a mystery thriller,its authors nothing like,say,*John Grisham10. But to McKean,nothing has ever seemed more fascinating than collecting and organizing American words.
McKean was8years old when she decided that when she grew up,she wanted to be a lexicographer—the technical term for a writer or editor of dictionaries.She first found it in her
埃林·麦基恩看起来并不像个革命者。她讲话轻声细语，自己缝裙子，每天写一篇谈论老式花纹图案的博客。她在地下室里工作，但这里铺着地毯，灯光明亮，有大约1500本藏书，很多书名都包含“词汇”这个词。她在芝加哥郊外的家并无出奇之处。
但本周，她将掀起自有印刷文字以来或许是该领域最大的一场革命。
埃林·麦基恩女士的成果名叫Wordnik，它将旧式案头工具书的精华体验与因特网创新相结合。词条可以像博客篇目一样加以标记，其发音可以像流媒体广播一样录制并播放，相关词汇也像网上书店中的“购买本书的顾客还买过的书目”一样列出。麦基恩说，当网页代替纸页后，我们看待词汇的方式也会全方位地转变。她以平静、毫不夸饰的口气预言道：“这个项目将永远、彻底地革新词典编纂的各个方面。”
诚然，词典更像是个数据库而非悬疑惊悚小说，其作者也与约翰·格里森姆之流大异其趣。但对麦基恩来说，没有什么比搜集和整理美语词汇更令人着迷的了。
麦基恩8岁时就决心长大后成为一名lexicographer（词典编纂者）——
—这是对词典撰写者或编者的专门称呼。她第一次
New Online Dictionary
Redefines‘Look It Up’
新的在线词典革新“查词”体验
By Jina Moore
Lexicographer1Erin McKean’s interactive‘Wordnik’is projected to be the largest online dictionary ever.
词典编纂者埃林·麦基恩的互动式“Wordnik”将成为迄今最大的在线词典。
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Jun.2009
English Digest
daily scouring of The Wall Street Journal.Her father was a Journal devotee,and McKean liked the human interest stories (but,she jokes,“even then,I knew enough not to read the editorial page.”).A feature article celebrated Oxford University Press's1980Word of the Year—ayatollah11—and talked ab
out preparing the newest edition of its most famous title,the Oxford English Dictionary.
“I think I was really attracted by the fact that it was taking21years to make the second edition of the Oxford English Dictionary,”she recalls.“I was8.Twenty-one years was forever.”
The lexicography bug12stuck,in part because McKean loved language.She was a voracious13reader,*plowing through14her local libraries'stacks15and devouring16anything she found at home,she says.“If it was lying around,I read it. If my parents didn't want me to read it,”she says,“they had to hide it.”
As her classmates abandoned childhood dreams of firefighting or Broadway stardom17for teaching or nursing, McKean stuck with words.“Nobody ever tried to*talk me out of18it.Nobody knew enough about it to know if it was easy or difficult,”she recalls.“Nobody had a brother who was a lexicographer the way they might have a brother who was a firefighter or an English teacher or a doctor or a lawyer. Nobody had ever met one.”
For good reason,she found out as she pursued joint bachelor's and master's degrees in linguistics at the University of Chicago:There aren't a whole lot of jobs for lexicographers. McKean estimates there may be200working lexicographers in America today,and that the field sees about two full-time opening
s19a year.
McKean got her start through a combination of luck and ingenuity:She called up the only dictionary publisher based 遇到这个词是在每天必读的《华尔街日报》上。她父亲是该报的忠实读者，麦基恩则喜欢其中的人情味新闻（但她打趣说：“即使在那时，我也知道不去读它的社论版。”）。报上的一篇专题文章是关于牛津大学出版社评出的1980年年度词语ayatollah的，文章还谈及该社正准备推出其最著名的《牛津英语词典》的最新版。
“这家出版社花了21年时间编写《牛津英语词典》第二版，我想这真的吸引了我，”她回忆道。“我当时才8岁，21年对我来说像永远那么久。”
这个词典编纂迷自此沉浸其中，部分源于她对语言的热爱。她贪婪地读书，艰难地阅读当地图书馆的藏书，家里任何可读的东西都不会放过，她说。“如果有书摆在那儿，我就会去读。如果我父母不想让我读下去了，”她说，
“他们就不得不把它藏起来。”
当她的同班同学们放弃了当消防队员或者百老汇明星的童年梦想，转而从教或者当护士时，麦基恩却仍痴迷于词汇。“没有人曾试图劝我放弃，没有人足以了解这一行是难还是易，”她回忆道。“人们可能有当
消防队员、英语教师、医生或者律师的哥哥，但却没有什么人的哥哥是词典编纂家。没人认识干这一行的。”
理所当然，当她在芝加哥大学攻读语言学的本硕连读学位时，她发现：词典编纂人员的工作机会并不多。麦基恩估计，目前美国可能有200名从事词典编纂工作的人员，每年大约只有两个全职岗位空缺。
麦基恩的起步靠的是机遇加才干。她打电话给芝加哥唯一一家词典出版社请求
1.lexicographer［摭leks I蘖k鬑gr藜f藜(r)］n.词典编纂者
2.vintage［蘖v I nt I d廾］a.过时的；老式的
3.subversion［s藜b蘖v誻蘼蘩藜n］n.颠覆；倾覆，覆灭；破坏
4.slate［sle I t］vt.<；主美>预定，规划；选定；注定
5.brainchild［蘖bre I nt蘩a I ld］n.<；口>脑力劳动的产物（如思
想、作品、发明、发现等）
6.depot［蘖dep藜尬］n.仓库，储藏处
7.devoid［d藜蘖v蘅I d］a.[一般作表语]毫无的，没有的（of）
8.bravado［br藜蘖v藁蘼d藜尬］n.虚张声势；虚张声势的举动
述，不错，的确）
10.John Grisham约翰·格里森姆（1955-，做过执业律师，当
选过密西西比州众议员，为美国知名畅销小说家，他的一系列富含法庭法律内容的畅销犯罪小说为他赢得了巨大的声
誉和财富）
11.ayatollah［摭藁蘼j藜蘖t藜尬l藜］n.阿亚图拉（对伊朗等国伊斯兰教
什叶派领袖的尊称）
12.bug［b蘧g］n.<；口>热衷于某事的人，迷，有癖好者；强烈的
兴趣，热，癖好
13.voracious［v鬑蘖re I蘩藜s］a.贪吃的，狼吞虎咽的；贪婪的，饥
渴的，渴求的
14.plow through费劲地阅读
editor怎么读英语发音15.stack［st覸k］n.[常作~s]（图书馆的）藏书书架，双面大书
架；书库
16.devour［d I蘖va尬藜(r)］vt.贪婪地（或热切地）看（或听、读等）
17.stardom［蘖st藁蘼d藜m］n.明星的地位（或身份）
18.talk out of说服…放弃…
19.opening［蘖藜尬p藜n I耷］n.（职位的）空缺
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13
2009．6英语文摘
in Chicago and asked for an internship.After graduation,the internship turned into a job,which eventually turned into a career at Oxford University Press,a move she likens to“being called up by the Yankees.”At age29,McKean was the chief editor of the American dictionaries group.“If it had Oxford and American in the title,”she says,“it was my fault.”
When it comes to dictionaries,McKean says,sensibility is key.“People have this idea of the Platonic20ideal of the dictionary.That's why they call it‘the dictionary’....They think that all dictionaries are pretty much the same.”Not so,she says. There are five print dictionary publishers in the US,each choosing which of the billions of words they've collected will make it into print.
What gets left out depends on the personality of the publishing house.On the other hand,how to evaluate what gets in is a task beyond most people.
“Most consumers don't have a
good metric21for deciding on
whether the dictionary they want
to use is a so they
flip the book over,then go to the
back,and it says,‘over250,000
entries.’And they go,‘Great,
this dictionary must be
awesome!’”she says.“Because
if you don't know a word,how
do you judge the quality of the
definition?”
Enter Wordnik,McKean's
newest project.In the infinite
space of the Internet,she can define as many words as she wants.
“There are hundreds of thousands of words that aren't in any print because there's no space for all of them.”
Wordnik has space for many of them,and for their*bells and whistles22.Her team of seven has analyzed what print and online dictionaries do and don't do well.They've built a user-friendly resource that should be the best—and biggest—of both worlds.Wordnik generates its content from a database of4 billion words,twice as many as that of her last employer.“Four billion words,”she says with a shrug,“is what you can pick up lying around on the floor23of the Internet.”
Want to evaluate a definition of a word you've never met? No problem;other users can tell you if they favor that
获得实习机会。毕业后，她由实习生转为正式员工，并最终供职于牛津大学出版社，她把这一举动比作“响应美国佬的号召”。29岁时，麦基恩已经成为美语词典组的主编。“如果书名里有牛津和美语这样的字眼，那就是拙作了。”她说。
说到词典，麦基恩认为，识别力是关键。“人们对词典抱有柏拉图式的理想，所以才称之为‘词典’……他
们认为所有的词典都是一模一样的。”并非如此，她说。美国有5家纸质词典出版机构，每一家都得自行从其搜集的浩如烟海的词汇中挑出最终要付印的词条。
哪些词不能入选取决于出版机构的特性。另一方面，评估入选词条的方法是多数
人不能胜任的。“多数
消费者没有一种合适
的衡量标准来确定他
们想要使用的词典是
不是好词典……于是
他们把词典快速翻一
遍，然后看到封底写
着‘超过25万个条
目’，就说，‘太好了，
这本词典一定很
棒！’”她说。“因为如
果你并不认识某个
词，又怎么能判断其
释义的质量呢？”
进入麦基恩的最新项目Wordnik，在因特网的无限空间里，她可以想给多少词释义就给多少词释义。
“现在有数十万词没有被任何纸质词典收录……因为篇幅有限。”
很多这样的词汇及其补充条目可以在Wordnik到空间。她的7人团队对纸质词典和在线词典的优劣进行了分析，并创建了方便用户使用的资源库，它将优于并大于任何纸质和在线词典。Wordnik所生成的内容源自一个40亿词的资料库，这是她上一个雇主机构资料库的两倍。“40亿个词，”她耸耸肩，“这就是你可以在开放的因特网上到的。”
想评价一个你从未见过的词的释义质量如何吗？没问题，其他使用者能告诉
Infinite dictionary:Erin McKean,former editor in
chief of US Dictionaries for Oxford University
Press,has created Wordnik,expanding the meaning
and uses of a dictionary.
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Jun.2009
English Digest
20.Platonic［pl藜蘖t鬑n I k］a.（古希腊哲学家）柏拉图的；柏拉图
哲学的
22.bells and whistles华丽的点缀
23.floor［fl蘅蘼(r)］n.（桥梁等的）面；大平面
24.farthingale［蘖f藁蘼奁I耷ge I l］n.（16-17世纪时期用以撑开女
裙的）裙环；（用裙环撑开的）裙环裙
25.cull［k蘧l］vt.挑出，选出
18世纪英国作家Horace Walpole所著童话故事The Three Princes of Serendip(Serendip系Ceylon的旧名)，书中主人公具有随处发现珍宝的本领]
学的
29.chad［t蘩覸d］n.[计]孔屑
30.Jacquard［蘖d廾覸k藁蘼d］[纺]n.提花机
31.loom［lu蘼m］n.织机
definition.Want to know what other words often appear in the same sentence as what you've just looked up?There's a section called“related”for words used in the same context as yours.Need to know what a farthingale24,for instance,looks like?Images are imported to the page from photo-depot giant Flickr.Unsure if you really understood the definition?Every word has several example sentences,culled25at random from that Internet floor and then sorted so the best rise to the top of your search page.
These,McKean says,are critical.They've been vanishing from print dictionaries as publishers try to cram26them with more words,but contextual sentences are what make people pick up reference books in the first place.“We think people go to a dictionary to find out what a word means,”she says. Not so.“Most people go to the dictionary because they don't want to look stupid.”
They don't want to sound stupid,either,which is why every word has an audio file of its pronunciation.Users can record their own pronunciations,too.
Print dictionaries do have one clear advantage,though: They show more than one word at a time.That makes skimming the print page fun,and McKean has tried to mimic that feeling with a“serendipity27”fe
ature,which generates words at random.
Perhaps the most surprising element of McKean's new dictionary is a frequency graph,which shows how often the word you've looked up was used,as a written word,in a year.That can tell you more about history than just the etymological28:Take“chad29,”for instance.The word's frequency in2000is high—thanks,of course,to that year's presidential election controversy.But there are signs of heavy usage much earlier.
“We have one text from1870that has the word‘chad’a lot,because it's about Jacquard30[weaving]looms31,which used to be run on punch cards,”McKean explains.“They had the same chad problems as the Florida ballots.”
你他们是否认可这个释义。想知道通常还有哪些词会用于你查的那个句子吗？有一个叫“相关词语”的栏目收录了在同一语境下使用的词。想知道譬如说“farthingale(裙环)”是什么样子吗？页面上有来自照片库巨头Flickr的图片。拿不准是否真正理解释义吗？每个词后面都有几个例句，它们是从因特网上随机选取后，经过整理，最合适的例句会出现在搜索页的最顶端。
麦基恩认为，以上这些都很重要。由于出版商尽力让词典收入更多的词，这些特已经从纸质词典中消失了，但情景例句才是促使人们拿起词典参看的根本原因。“我们以为人们去查词典是想搞清一个词的意
思，”她说。并非如此。“多数人查词典是因为不想让自己露怯。”
他们也不想让别人听出自己的无知，所以每个词都配有其读音的音频文件。使用者也可以录下自己的发音。
但纸质词典也有个明显优势：他们可以一次显示两个以上的条目。这使得浏览纸质词典成为乐趣，于是麦基恩试图以随机生成一些词条的“意外收获”功能来模拟这一感觉。
或许麦基恩的新词典最令人称奇的特是使用频度图，它可以显示你所查的词在某一年中作为书面语的使用频率。这不仅告诉你该词的词源，还告诉你更多的历史知识。以“chad”(孔屑)这个词为例，这个词在2000年的使用频率很高——
—当然，这是因为当年的总统大选出现争议。但很早以前该词也曾被频繁使用。
“我们从1870年的一段文本中发现‘chad’一词被使用得很多，因为这段文字是关于提花织机的，这种机器过去要在带孔眼的纹板上使用，”麦基恩解释道。“它们和佛罗里达的选票一样有孔屑问题。”
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15
2009．6英语文摘
Jun.2009
English Digest
Peter Zumthor,a 65-year -old Swiss architect known for buildings in spectacular alpine 1settings that mix spare,powerfully elemental forms with a rich range of materials and sly 2accommodations 3of history,will on Monday be named the winner of the 2009Pritzker Prize,the field 's top honor.
In certain ways,the news is no surprise:Zumthor 's name has been a steady presence on lists of leading candidates for the prize.His buildings remain pilgrimage 4sites for architects,students and critics alike.A particularly romantic reputation clings to Zumthor 's Thermal Baths in Vals,Switzerland,which opened in 1996.65岁的瑞士建筑师彼得·卒姆托因其位处崇山峻岭中的建筑作品而闻名于世。
他的建筑作品把简单的、极其基本的形状与各式各样的材料结合起来，又巧妙地融历史于其中。卒姆托将于周一被宣布荣膺建筑界的最高荣誉———2009年度普利兹克奖。
从某些方面讲，这一消息并不让人感到意外：卒姆托的名字经常出现在该奖项主要候选者的名单中。
他的建筑作品始终是建筑师、学子们以及评论家们的圣地。在瑞士的瓦尔斯，于1996年开放、由卒姆托设计的“温泉浴场”，一直以超乎寻常的浪漫气息而享有盛名。65岁的瑞士建筑师彼得·卒姆托
荣膺2009年度普利兹克奖
By Christopher Hawthorne
Ultimately,Mc -Kean 's goal is rather humble,
when judged against the volume of words that have accumulated in the 400-year history of modern English.
“Ideally my goal is,before I die,to have some information about every word that 's ever been used in print.”
That may be the real revolution:digitizing a bit of data about every word we English speakers have ever put on the old -fashioned page.Byte by byte,the soft -spoken lexicographer will *see her revolution through 32.■考虑到现代英语在其400年历史中所积累的词汇数量，麦基恩的最终目标并不高。
“我的理想目标是，在我有生之年，为所有曾经出现在印刷品上的词收录一些信息。”
这可能是一场真正的革命：把我们讲英语的人曾运用于旧式纸页上的每个词所包含的点滴信息资料进行数字化。积沙成塔，这位话语温和的词典编纂家将会把她的革命进行到底。
（黄景睿译注自The Christian Science Monitor Mar.
16,2009）
32.see through 把…干到底，办完；使顺利通过
Art Museum
Kolumba,Cologne,Germany,2007
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荩
Swiss Architect Peter Zumthor,
65,Is 2009Pritzker Laureate
16

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