Manuscript Preparation
Q. In 2.51 you recommend Webster’s Third New International Dictionary and call the Collegiate its “abridgment.” However, they sometimes disagree, which one wouldn’t expect from a true abridgment. (An example is “fire fighter” and “firefighter.”) Does the Third New International always trump the Collegiate when both contain the same word but with different spellings?
A. Not always. For instance, sometimes the dictionary that trumps should be the one that’s more up to date. And in vetting an issue like the spelling of a compound, where the goal is consistency rather than “correctness,” the right dictionary to use can simply be the one that’s close at hand.