What makes a dictionary reliable or authoritative?
A. Technique, resources, and experience. We put together dictionaries in the time-honored fashion of collecting field data with our language research and monitoring program and reporting language usage as the these data indicate (sorry, but Im of the generation that still uses data as a plural). This is the only responsible way of going about the job. On the second front, we maintain all our dictionaries in database form, which helps ensure consistency of treatment. Last, we have had a standing staff of editors since the early 1950s, and today the editors and researchers bring to the task an aggregate of nearly 200 years of experience in producing Websters New World Dictionaries. You cant reproduce that sort of honed group ability with a pick-up team.
