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Grammar
In recent years, grammar has begun to enjoy greater prominence than in the past
few decades. It is once again being taught explicitly in schools throughout the
United States. In addition, there is a recognition that different meanings of a word
are closely associated with different lexical and syntactic patterns. The
New Oxford
American Dictionary records and exemplifies the most important of these patterns
at the relevant senses of each word, thus giving guidance on language use as well
as word meaning.
For example, with the word
bomb
, it is possible to distinguish the main senses of
the verb simply on the basis of the grammar: whether the verb is transitive (takes a
direct object) or intransitive (no direct object):
CORE SENSE: attack *(a place or vehicle)* with a bomb or bombs:
EXAMPLE: *London* was bombed, night after night.
GRAMMAR: [trans.]
(The asterisks shown here match the direct object in the example with the
parenthetical item in the definition)
CORE SENSE:
informal (of a movie, play, or other event) fail miserably:
EXAMPLE: a big-budget movie that bombed at the box office.
GRAMMAR: [intrans.]
This has particular relevance for a dictionary such as the
New Oxford American
Dictionary, where the aim is to present information in such a way that it helps to
explain the structure of the language itself, not just the meanings of individual
senses. For this reason, special attention has been paid to the grammar of each
word, and grammatical structures are given explicitly.
Where possible, the syntactic behavior of a word is presented directly: for example,
if a verb is normally found in a particular sense followed by a certain preposition,
this is indicated before the definition, in bold. For example, see
build
(
build on
).
In other cases, collocations that are typical of the term in use, though not
obligatory, are shown highlighted within the example sentence. For examples, see
ball game
(
a whole new ball game
) and
bet
(
your best bet
).
Great efforts have been made to use a minimum of specialist terminology.
Nevertheless, a small number of terms are essential in explaining the grammar of a
word. The less familiar terms are explained below. All terms are, of course, defined
and explained under their own entries in the dictionary.
Terms relating to nouns
[as adj.]:
used to mark a noun that can be placed before another noun in order to
modify its meaning, e.g.,
boom
and
bedside
.
[treated as sing.]:
used to mark a noun that is plural in form but is used with a
singular verb, e.g.,
mumps
in
mumps is one of the major childhood diseases or
genetics
in
genetics has played a major role in this work.
[treated as sing. or pl.]:
used to mark a noun that can be used with either a
singular or a plural verb without any change in meaning or in the form of the
headword (often called
collective nouns, because they typically denote groups of
people considered collectively), e.g.,
the staff are committed to this policy or the
staff is trying to gag its critics.
[in sing.]:
used to mark a noun that is used as a count noun but is never or rarely
found in the plural, e.g.,
ear
in
an ear for rhythm.
Terms relating to verbs
[trans.]:
used to mark a verb that is transitive, i.e., takes a direct object (the type of
direct object often being shown in parentheses in the definition), e.g.,
escort
.
[intrans.]:
used to mark a verb that is intransitive, i.e., takes no direct object, e.g.,
quibble
.
[with adverbial]:
used to mark a verb that takes an obligatory adverbial, typically a
prepositional phrase, without which the sentence in which the verb occurs would
sound unnatural or weird, e.g.,
amble
.
Terms relating to adjectives
[attrib.]:
used to mark an adjective that is normally used attributively, i.e., comes
before the noun that it modifies, e.g.,
certain
in
a certain man (not the man is
certain, which has a very different meaning). Note that attributive use is standard
for many adjectives, especially in specialist fields: the [attrib.] label is used only to
