Picturing a New Webster’s

“Just as extreme makeovers and the new and improved Demi Moore are having their cultural moment, so, too, in a much more understated way, is the latest update of Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary. Last month, the 11th edition made its debut, and along with the 10,000 new words and meanings (for a total of 165,000), 230 new illustrations were added (total: 725). The man responsible for deciding how to depict which nouns — and, with the sole exception of RAMPANT, every drawing illustrates a noun — is Jeffrey Middleton, who rendered all the new images himself. Middleton says the advantage of the pen-and-ink pictures over photographs is that ”you can emphasize certain aspects; you can get closer to the abstraction of what the item is.” Here he explains some of the thinking behind the dictionary’s pictures.” (from The New York Times)

August 3, 2003 by Uncategorized 0

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