Really, all I was trying to say was that, for certain purposes,
especially dictionaries for native speakers, rules for interpreting
MWEs allow the users to understand many of them without resorting to
the dictionary; perhaps this accounts for the 'bias against MWEs' that
Robert Amsler sees.
I notice that m-w.com has 'light pen' in its lexicon, but with the
older definition. It has none of the others John Sowa mentions. It
does have 'geoduck' (a kind of big clam) but not 'littlejack' (a kind
of little clam). It does have 'littleneck,' "also called 'littleneck
clam'." It has 'butter clam,' 'hard clam', and 'hard-shell clam.' So,
another explanation of the putative bias against MWEs in dictionary
resources is just lack of coverage in general--as well as out of
dateness, which Amsler noted.
But this is pretty much off topic at this point, so perhaps I'd best clam up.
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