Editing Webster's Dictionary (section)

== ''Webster's Third New International Dictionary'' (1961) ==
{{main|Webster's Third New International Dictionary}}
{{anchor|W3NID}}After about a decade of preparation, G. & C. Merriam issued the entirely new ''Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged'' (commonly known as ''Webster's Third'', or ''W3'') in September 1961.

The dictionary was met with considerable criticism for its descriptive (rather than prescriptive) approach.<ref>Herbert Charles Morton, ''The Story of Webster's Third: Philip Gove's Controversial Dictionary and its Critics'' (1995)  p. 123</ref> The dictionary's treatment of "ain't" was subject to particular scorn, since it seemed to overrule the near-unanimous denunciation of that word by English teachers.

=== Revisions and updates ===
Since the 1961 publication of the ''Third'', [[Merriam-Webster]] has reprinted the main text of the dictionary with only minor corrections. To add new words, they created an ''Addenda Section'' in 1966, included in the front matter, which was expanded in 1971, 1976, 1981, 1986, 1993, and 2002. However, the rate of additions was much slower than it had been throughout the previous hundred years. Following the purchase of Merriam-Webster by [[Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.]] in 1964, a three-volume version was issued for many years as a supplement to the encyclopedia. At the end of volume three, this edition included the ''Britannica World Language Dictionary'', 474 pages of translations between English and French, German, Italian, Spanish, Swedish, and Yiddish.  A CD-ROM version of the complete text, with thousands of additional new words and definitions from the "addenda", was published by Merriam-Webster in 2000, and is often packaged with the print edition. The third edition was published in 2000 on Merriam-Webster's website as a [[Subscription business model|subscription]] service.

Planning for a Fourth edition of the ''Unabridged'' began with a 1988 memo from Merriam-Webster president William Llewellyn but was repeatedly deferred in favor of updates to the more lucrative ''Collegiate''.  Work on a full revision finally began in 2009. In January 2013, the ''Third New International'' website service was rebranded as the ''Unabridged'' with the first "Release" of 4,800 new and revised entries added to the site. There were two further "Releases" in 2014. The revised website is not branded as the "Fourth edition" and it is unlikely that a print version will ever be produced, because demand is declining and its increased size would make it unwieldy and expensive.<ref>{{Cite journal|url=https://www.neh.gov/humanities/2009/julyaugust/feature/ain%E2%80%99t-the-truth|title=Ain't That the Truth: Webster's Third: The Most Controversial Dictionary in the English Language|last=Skinner|first=David|author-link=David Skinner (journalist)|date=July–August 2009|journal=Humanities|volume=30|issue=4|publisher=[[National Endowment for the Humanities]]|access-date=May 1, 2021|archive-date=May 2, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210502005223/https://www.neh.gov/humanities/2009/julyaugust/feature/ain%E2%80%99t-the-truth|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.slate.com/articles/life/culturebox/2015/01/merriam_webster_dictionary_what_should_an_online_dictionary_look_like.html|title=The Definition of a Dictionary|last=Fatsis|first=Stefan|publisher=Slate.com|date=January 12, 2015|access-date=April 25, 2015|archive-date=July 7, 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230707040903/https://www.slate.com/articles/life/culturebox/2015/01/merriam_webster_dictionary_what_should_an_online_dictionary_look_like.html|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.chronicle.com/blogs/linguafranca/unabridged-online|title=Unabridged Online|last=Metcalf|first=Allan|date=June 11, 2013|work=[[The Chronicle of Higher Education]]|access-date=January 19, 2018|archive-date=November 30, 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221130160120/https://www.chronicle.com/blogs/linguafranca/unabridged-online|url-status=live}}</ref>