Politicising the dictionary

'When April with his showers sweet' – there spoke an Englishman, not far from his native Kent.

If Chaucer had been an American and alive today, he'd be writing about 'April with his piercing cold' – 41 below zero in a place with the appropriate name of Lonely, Alaska. Next line, 'April with his searing heat' – 101 degrees in Havazu City, Arizona, and in between these extremes, just about everything you could hope for, or fear.

A day or two ago, when I was to meet my wife at the airport on her way back from Paris, I was wakened in the middle of the night, well, 7am, by what my dream told me was the Russians coming – a shower of missiles drilling against the windowpane and bending it. It turned out to be just a mad, windy rain and the radio told me it was the fringe of a tornado that had whirled through northern New Jersey, knocked down trees, scooped up roofing and clobbered a church. An hour later, dazzling sun and a balmy breeze and the apple and cherry blossom blazing in Central Park.

The baseball season opened last Monday after a short delay in Boston while three inches of overnight snow melted and the resulting slush had been squeegeed from the diamond. I take it that you have no trouble with 'squeegee', the implement with a long handle going down into a horizontal rubber brush that, for such necessities as drying off a skating rink or a putting green or a baseball diamond, can look as long as a city block.

The diamond, for the innocent, is, the Oxford Dictionary correctly says, 'the large, diamond-shaped space enclosed by the four bases'. I hope this is clear and I hope the Russians in their new edition of the Oxford Dictionary have been given the correct definition of these things, which cannot be said for the Oxford University Dictionary prepared in all goodwill for Russian students learning English.

Imagine the wonderful boost that has just been given to the Soviet view of life by the definitions a young Russian will find in this new Oxford Dictionary when he looks up 'capitalism'. It says, 'An economic and social system based on private ownership of the means of production, operated for private profit and on the exploitation of man by man.'

What about 'socialism?' 'A social and economic system which is replacing capitalism.' And how about 'Communism?' 'A theory revealing the historical necessity for the revolutionary replacement of capitalism by Communism.'

It must be awfully tough these days to be an Englishman or an American working, if they allow such, as a visiting professor in Russia, especially if he or she is an economist. Hopeless to maintain that capitalism works in some places, that a five per cent profit margin is about as high as you can expect after the money gone for capital investment, raw materials and wages.

'But sir, it says here the exploitation of man by man, and it says, the necessity of replacing capitalism by Communism and by revolution, too!' 'Well, er... I'm afraid you've got hold of a Soviet textbook.' 'Oh no, sir! This is your very own dictionary. It's the Oxford.'

Well, eventually, these howlers, faux-pas, boo-boos or clangers, came to be spotted by British and American journalists. 'To what, Mr Editor, do you attribute these highly subjective definitions? Computer error?' 'No,' the poor fellow replied, identified as chief executive of the Oxford University Press, 'we have to adjust our dictionaries,' he said, 'to different markets.'

It's quite an adjustment when you accommodate a meaning to the prevailing political theory of the reader. I doubt that the Russians, in a textbook prepared for English students of Russian, define capitalism as a system of private ownership of the means of production, most recently, of shared management between owners and workers which has shown a remarkable capacity to endure and even to prosper, in spite of Karl Marx's prediction in 1848 that capitalism was on its last legs.

The Oxford official gave the limp excuse that just as British English and American English are different in many ways, so, he was implying, you have to allow for differences between British English and Russian English. In the result, the Oxford boys seem, in these instances, anyway, to have transformed a dictionary from a dictionary into a political or ideological weapon – as Dr Johnson turned his monumental and entertaining work into a satirical weapon.

Look up the word 'patron' in Johnson's dictionary. He's defining it at a time when the only way to get a learned work published was to get some rich man, some patron, to advance the money to float it. Johnson, himself, had begged and pleaded for seven years with Lord Chesterfield, while he, Johnson, was ruining his eyesight and scraping a living in an attic. So it's hardly surprising that when he came to define 'patron' he was in no mood to be strictly fair and objective. 'A patron,' he said, 'one who countenances, supports or protects, commonly a wretch who supports with insolence and is paid with flattery.'

At least he signed his work, Samuel Johnson. I ought to say, in mitigation of the sins of the Oxford University Press, that they didn't provide these definitions to the Russians. The Russians bought the rights to this Oxford students' dictionary years ago and they had the decency, or the gall, to request these changes. We don't know who said, 'Well, yes.' Was it some mole from neighbouring Cambridge? Or do they have moles at Oxford?

Anyway, permission was given and now that chief executive has to make a sorry apology. 'We blundered,' he said, 'the political overtones should have been thought more carefully about. I think we should have said, according to Marxist doctrine, capitalism means such and such and not done it quite so badly.'

Well, what's done cannot be undone and I think it unlikely that Pravda or Tass will publish the apology or the explanation. As far as they're concerned, they can say, in all honesty, 'These are the official definitions of capitalism, socialism and Communism, given in the most distinguished of English dictionaries.' Chalk up one for their side.

While we're on the Russians, something must be said about Mr Gorbachev's latest proposal to freeze the deployment of Soviet medium-range missiles in Europe. On Monday, Moscow radio put out this bulletin which, in a deadpan way, is factually correct: 'Worldwide interest is being paid to a major new peace initiative outlined by Mr Gorbachev, but official Washington has been quick to give it a cold shoulder to the Soviet peace proposal in order to blunt its impact on world opinion.'

There's no question there is worldwide interest. The major new peace initiative, however, is not new and opinions vary widely throughout the world whether the initiative is a peace proposal or a surrender proposal. Certainly Washington gave it a cold shoulder.

For once, the facts and why the Americans and America's allies differ so sharply with the Russians in interpreting them are not hard to establish. The Russians have deployed 414 of these medium-range missiles, each with three warheads. NATO has 134 missiles with single warheads – plans to have another 438. So a freeze now would leave the Russians with – not even counting their triple warheads – a superiority of three to one. The American, the administration, position is exactly that of Mrs Thatcher who said the consequences of such a freeze would not be balance which we seek, but enormous Soviet superiority.

For their part, and certainly to all the peoples behind the Iron Curtain, the Russians do not accept this arithmetic. In measuring the opposing missile forces in Europe, the Russians count in the British and the French missiles which several neutral and strategic experts believe go some way, not all the way, to establishing a balance or parity. This dispute is old and continuous. In reviving it in public and calling it a new offer of peace and stability, Mr Gorbachev is making a powerful play for the peace marchers who failed last spring to stop the latest deployment of American Pershing and cruise missiles in Europe.

Mr Gorbachev has made it all the harder to convince these passionate and sincere marchers and demonstrators that a truer balance of missile strength in Europe would require first a colossal reduction of the Russians' 800 warheads on the SS-20s that are aimed at Europe.

Put quite bluntly, and rightly or wrongly, the central conviction of American and NATO policy is the belief that the first, grand aim of Soviet policy is the neutralising or subjection of Western Europe, preferably by words, by a drumbeat of appeals for peace and the renunciation of nuclear war, but if that fails, by the demonstration of overwhelming military power which it would be foolish and useless to plan to oppose.

It doesn't offer much cheer for the months ahead in Geneva. And that brings up the prospects – if any – of the summit that President Reagan has said he seeks. Mr Gorbachev replied promptly that a positive attitude to such a meeting was expressed on both sides. I think this means, yes, he'd like one.

But since Mr Gorbachev's freeze ploy, the administration has thought again. Not... not to back away, but both the White House and the State Department are talking now about much serious work and careful preparation before. One official recalled the abortive 1961 summit between Kennedy and Khrushchev which achieved a tense, personal quarrel over Berlin and President Kennedy departing for home, with the grim remark, 'It's going to be a long, cold spring.'

What there is not going to be is the genial, 'let's get acquainted' meeting that Mr Reagan proposed, which is perhaps as well. The official picture of the two genial giants, Mr Reagan and, for a change, an affable and smiling Russian chief, could only excite us with fond and foolish hopes for a condition noticeably absent from the earth – peace and goodwill toward men.

This transcript was typed from a recording of the original BBC broadcast (© BBC) and not copied from an original script. Because of the risk of mishearing, the BBC cannot vouch for its complete accuracy.

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