The lexicography of English : from origins to present / Henri Béjoint.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

This book looks at how English words have been recorded, ordered, dissected and displayed in dictionaries in Great Britain and the USA from the seventeenth century to the present. The author compares the descriptive approach of English lexicography with its more prescriptive American counterpart, and contrasts both with the lexicography of France. He shows many aspects of lexicography have hardly changed over the centuries: the challenge of distinguishing a word's senses, for example, and of tracing the history of its forms and uses. He found out that problems remain, which are treating taboo-words and insults. The book examines the general-purpose of dictionaries of English from the point of view of someone who is not a native speaker.