Page:Dictionary of aviation.djvu/9

 Most technical glossaries and dictionaries are blunderingly made. They are often characterized by *(1) meagerness of vocabulary; *(2) paucity, and absence of classification, of frases; *(3) lack of alternate spellings; *(4) lack or inaccuracy of pronunciations; (5) lack of etymologies; *(6) inaccuracy of definitions; *(7) inadequate cross-references; *(8) defectiv classification of the parts of speech, and differentiation of the senses, of the title-words; *(9) badness of typografy; *(10) highness of price; (11) lack of quotations from, or references to, the literature of the subject, in support of the usage recorded.

In the present volume I have tried to overcome the deficiencies markt above with a star (*). Further improvements, at least from some points of view, would be the introduction of etymologies and references. But altho I have one or more good references or quotations from reputable books or periodicals for practically every word, and every sense of every word, in the book, I have withheld them all, as well as all etymologies, encyclopedic features, and pictorial illustrations, from the present edition.

I have been fortunate in securing certain specific criticisms, especially among the meteorologic terms, from the beginning of the book to about the word governing-plane, from A. Lawrence Rotch, founder of the meteorologic observing-station at Blue Hill, near Boston, Massachusetts, and professor in Harvard University.

Vocabulary. The vocabulary of this dictionary is thus necessarily, from the scope of the subject treated, quite an extensiv one. Besides the multitude of words used in the nomenclatures of the above subjects, in so far as they relate to aviation, many words and frases are included which may, on the one hand, seem bizarre or fanciful (rocket-rising, adj.; scareship, n., etc.), and, on the other hand, self-explanatory (air-balloon, aviation-meet, etc.). In such a new subject, however, what seems bizarre today may not seem bizarre tomorrow, even to the same individual; and what seems, when recorded, self-explanatory or matter-of-course, is often, in