The "dictionary wars" had erupted regularly ever since the appearance, in 1961, of Webster's Third International (the unabridged dictionary of which Mr. Mish's Collegiates are the offspring), and WFB, as a well-known consumer of dictionaries, had been an active combatant. The main point at issue: ought "a dictionary to exercise any normative functions"? Mr. Mish answers ably, but this show proves far richer than a mere tussle over "ain't" and "hopefully." WFB: "I remember years ago reading that when Ronald Knox translated the New Testament he took 13 different Greek words and conjoined them all into the single word 'righteous.' In doing so, I was told by this particular critic, he set back ethical research by two thousand years. Now, if there is not a felt need for a gradation of a word, do you rule that the time has come to jettison it? ..." FPM: "We wouldn't jettison anything if it were still in common use or if it had been used in important literary works of the past. You can't take a word out of a dictionary that calls itself 'collegiate' if Shakespeare used it in Hamlet, even if no one has used it since Hamlet."