THE LANGUAGE
Without a blush, Publisher Bennett Cerf predicted last week that while Samuel Johnson was the great lexicog rapher of the 18th century and Noah Webster of the 19th, Random House will be the best of the 20th. Then Cerf, who helps run Random House between stints on What's My Line?, held up the evidence: the new 2,059-page, 260,000-word Random House Dictionary of the English Language. It took seven years to compile, cost $3,000,000, and at a $25 sales price, says Cerf, it is "the workingman's dictionary."
The big book is obviously aimed at a broader market than the one...