ABSTRACT
I am one of those hapless mortals who are condemned to read what Turgeniev once called "the great, powerful, truthful and free Russian tongue" with the aid of a dictionary. Next to the telephone book there would appear to be no more dismal consecutive reading than a dictionary. Gone are the days when a crotchety lexicographer could indulge his feelings as Dr. Johnson did when he defined oats as "food for horses, and, in Scotland, for humans." Modern dictionaries are collective, cumulative, standardized compilations, informative but uninspired and uninspiring. At least, so I thought until I began to consult the highly useful abridged Russko-Angliiski Slovar, published by Ogiz-Gis, the State Publishing House for Foreign and National Dictionaries.
