Review of Oxford American Dictionary and Thesaurus (Hardcover)

Perhaps I will end up buying the Oxford English Reference Dictionary at some point, but presently, this Oxford American Dictionary and Thesaurus 1st Ed is great.I don't care about slang or computer definitions in my dictionary, English has always been English, and while American may be different in spelling, it is still English.Internet, blog, PCMCIA, ARP, .NET, Mono, etc... is in computer books, which is where it should be.I don't expect my dictionary to have the recipe for Rice Balls or the proper pronunciation of this common variation of a Japanese dish, now perhaps coming towards being cross-cultural.I expect that information to be in a cookbook.

However, in words, it's wonderful.Why?That's easy; I believe it's because it had 'anfractuosity' as well as the minimum of 3 decent definitions for 'numinous'.This was the smallest dictionary I could find that had all the words in the Prologue of 'The Problem of Pain' by CS Lewis.Any dictionary that can match words with the vocabulary that CS Lewis expressed is all that I need.

Some other thoughts... I've been reading dictionary reviews for 20 minutes, and I think there are too many people that are trying to get subject specific with their dictionaries.Dictionaries should be ENGLISH specific.It's all this slang, idioms, and subject specific vocabulary that has dropped my vocabulary to sad terms.Between that application, and the genuine desire of individuals around the world to give the wrong definition to words such as feminine, it's no wonder the young are becoming less educated while spending more time in school.

New English... There is no such thing.English is English.It's been essentially the same for much longer than I've been alive.

Still, you should definitely get a dictionary of slang and idioms.It's good to know what people are saying in a specific region/country.





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Review of Webster's Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language (Hardcover)

As a writer I could not properly do my work without my Webster's. Granted, it is a bit big to use as a desktop dictionary for looking up the proper spelling of a word. Then again, that is not the purpose of an unabridged dictionary. If one is building a reference library the unabridged dictionary is just as necessary as a thesaurus.



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Review of Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary of Current English (Hardcover)

No other book on my bookshelf is more worn out. I use it all the time. When I started to study English I used to use an English / Portuguese (my first language) dictionary but I could only actually improve my English when I started using the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary.

The dictionary has lots of pictures (over 1700) for words that can be explained but for which a picture is much more effective like "hinge". The words have a pronunciation guide with a mark (') showing the main stress. There are many useful appendixes like irregular verbs conjugation, usage of numbers, punctuation, family relationships and a few colorful maps.

Over 220 usage notes clarify the subtle differences among words such as dealer trader and merchant. Although it's mainly a British English dictionary the differences in spelling, use or pronunciation between American English and British English are stressed.

By far the most interesting feature is the extremely reduced defining vocabulary constituted of 3500 words. The great majority of definitions are written using that reduced defining vocabulary. This simplifies the definitions and it's a great starting vocabulary for the beginners. The use of such a small defining vocabulary rules out the use of this dictionary as a thesaurus but the advantages compensate this drawback.

My copy is a paper back that has been reinforced with adhesive tape. This makes the dictionary lighter and handy. I used to put it on my back pack and take it to all my classes when I started college in USA.

The drawbacks are the need of an additional thesaurus and the fact that the entries are not syllabified. Nevertheless I would give it 10 stars if I could.

Leonardo Alves - December 2000



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Review of Microsoft Encarta College Dictionary: The First Dictionary For The Internet Age (Hardcover)

Americans, and college students in particular, are spoiled for choice in the matter of dictionaries. There are five good college dictionaries and you won't go wrong buying any of them, so the remarks here are addressed to why the Microsoft Encarta College Dictionary might be the one for you. It is the newest of all the college dictionaries. This is both a strength and a weakness. The more mature dictionaries have had the opportunity of going through multiple editions, correcting small errors and inconsistencies that have been caught by careful readers at each stage. This has not happened yet with Encarta, as other reviewers have noted. On the other hand, Encarta has many up-to-date technical and scientific terms that have not appeared in the other dictionaries yet, and it is the strongest contender by far for inclusion of computer-related terminology and acronyms, an area of vocabulary that sends many readers to the dictionary these days. Encarta is also particularly good at including compounds with specific denotation that are not transparent to the general reader: neurolinguistic programming, intermediate bulk container, sieve tube element, to name a few.

The essay in the front of the dictionary, "Usage in Crisis?" sets out the rationale for the inclusion many of the dictionary's special features. It's two pages long and worth reading to determine if you're in the class of people that is better served by this dictionary than its competitors. If you're a college student who has difficulty spelling or who struggles with the distinction between its and it's, or their, there, and they're, this is the book for you.

This dictionary has considerably more British bias than any of the other college dictionaries. Subtle British bias leaks through in both the headword list and in definition language. For example, the dictionary includes the fairly obscure, and not difficult to understand British vulgarism f...wit," yet does not have an entry for the far more common, and less transparent American slang term "dirtball." The definition at "tag wrestling" notes that competitors "take it in turns . . ." The American idiom is simply "take turns" and would have sufficed here. The flipside and upside of this bias is that you'll find better coverage in this dictionary of British English than the other college dictionaries provide.

For those who enjoy lingering over pages in the dictionary, this one is far easier on the eyes than most. The distinct typeface of the headwords easily sets them off from the definition text. The quick definitions in long entries are a useful way of navigating through them while looking for a particular sense. As a completely new dictionary, the Encarta is not encumbered by a tradition of style and presentation format that was developed long before the information age. Its fresh start in terms of presentation and inclusion support its claim to be the first dictionary of the Internet age.



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Review of The Oxford Style Manual (Hardcover)

What is not clear from the listing for this book in most of OUP's promotional materials is that THE OXFORD STYLE MANUAL is really TWO books in one: THE OXFORD GUIDE TO STYLE and THE OXFORD DICTIONARY FOR WRITERS AND EDITORS. Even at the combined length of just over 1,000 pages, THE MANUAL is a manageable reference work, no more cumbersome than a standard collegiate dictionary.

Although, as an American, I will continue to use the CHICAGO MANUAL OF STYLE as my arbiter for editorial decisions, I find Oxford's manual an excellent way of distinguishing between British and American styles of English; Part II (the dictionary) is especially thorough in pointing out key differences. Also, beginning on page 244 in Part I is a list of about 500 everyday American words with their British equivalents (tick-tack-toe = noughts and crosses). Although it would be nice to have the same list in reverse (an American's undershirt is a "vest" in UK, and his vest is a "waistcoat", something that is not immediately clear from the way the list is put together), the list is short enough for anyone to read through and become familiar with. (The CHICAGO MANUAL OF STYLE has no equivalent list.)

In short, a good and thorough resource.



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Review of Oxford American College Dictionary (Hardcover)

This 2002 book is an abridgement of the excellent New Oxford American Dictionary (NOAD, published 2001), with a price in line with other college dictionaries.Unfortunately, there seem to be a few problem areas.

The first thing that will strike many college students and graduates is the almost complete absence of etymologies.A few of the more interesting ones are highlighted with the heading WORD HISTORY; for example, this is one of very few sources that make clear why the Dutch for "the cage" appears in English as DECOY.A few other etymologies appear with the heading ORIGIN.For the most part, you won't find any.It would seem that such information would add a lot to many entries, such as UBUNTU, TRIFFID, GROK, TOHUBOHU, and thousands more.One consequence is that the usage note for ESKIMO refers to a deleted etymology.Granted, the etymologies in most competitors have a lot of fluff; they'll show two of numerous older spellings of "dog" before implying that the trail grows cold in Old English; a simple "<OE" or "OE<?"should be enough.The datings that appear in a few competitors and some other Oxford dictionaries would be a fine addition.

In a brief survey of one-word lowercase entries from LI to LIEDER in this and three comparable (college) dictionaries, it appears that coverage in this dictionary is nearly as good.It is, however, the only one to omit LIAISE, LIBELANT, LIBELEE, LICENSURE, and an adjectival form for LIBATION (but the competitors disagree, two showing LIBATIONARY, one LIBATIONAL).This dictionary relegates LIBERALISM to a run-on, a word for which the competition had relatively long entries; the difference is partly offset by a longer entry for LIBERAL.But it was the only one not to relegate LIBERTARIANISM to a run-on.It has only run-ons for LIBERATION, LICHENOLOGY, and LIBRETTIST (the precise relation between a librettist and a libretto is not one of the senses given elsewhere for the suffix -IST).Two competitors explain the missing LIDLESS, a poetic form that may well still be met in colleges.It is the only one to list LICENSED, a form unlikely to be sought.Elsewhere, it is not hard to find entries that all the competitors omit; WAQF and CINQ will intrigue Scrabblers.

More than a dozen pages are blank.This is certainly a surprise, since most publishers allot their lexicographers however many pages can be printed affordably for the intended sales price, and they scramble to squash the available material into what seems to be too small a space.Larger Oxford dictionaries would provide plenty of material for filling these pages up.

No doubt Roger Staubach is pleased to have an entry, and would be even more so if his name were spelled correctly.It's unclear whether users would expect to find anything about him in a dictionary, but this one tries to include a lot of currently famous sports and entertainment personalities, and users might enjoy this feature.Cal Ripken makes an appearance too, but since the entry hasn't been updated, his 2001 retirement is unnoted.The space devoted to Perry, a tennis star from the thirties, might have been better devoted to Commodore Perry in a college dictionary, and there are many similar examples.

Unnecessarily in my opinion, an illustration for skyscraper has been edited to remove the World Trade Center.There are quite a number of illustrations, many adding little besides a break in what some readers might consider monotonous text.Whoever drew the picture for hyperbola has little appreciation for asymptotes.Every country comes with a large map, showing very few cities other than capitals, and mostly useless.The result is that the Northern Mariana Islands are shown with greater detail than in the National Geographic Atlas, while most of the largest U.S. cities appear on no map whatever.It's unclear that dictionary users expect maps, and those that do will probably look elsewhere.

Inevitably a new work has slipups here and there,of them possibly attributable to the abridgement.The entry for the noun SHANKS' MARE reads "used to walking"; you need the complete entry from NOAD to make any sense of the definition, which in itself is more of an explanation than something that can take the place of a noun.The symbol for SECOND didn't survive intact.The entries for GOODNESS and SAKE disagree on the punctuation of"for goodness' sake".Only the illustrative citation for Spartan hints that its metaphoric usage is now usually uncapitalized.And the spelling Stonehendge appears.At times one feels that one is the first human to be reading certain entries in their current form.Information for REIS, BO, SH, ADELGID, etc., is present, but not anywhere you are likely to look.On the other hand, "Sly" is cross-referenced to Stallone.

Kudos to Oxford for its sensible treatment of the spelling or usage of such entries as miniscule, flout/flaunt, plaintext, back seat, hopefully, disinterested, under way, supercede, they, and dozens more.Hopefully a future edition will have something to say against the spelling KI for the word pronounced CHI and now usually spelled QI.And hopefully we won't have to wait long for the Second Edition of this dictionary, a more patient and careful abridgement of NOAD.Except for price and portability, nearly all the pluses of this work are found in NOAD, while most of the minuses mentioned above are not in NOAD.For now, if you can afford only a college dictionary, I would have to recommend one of the others.



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Review of Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary with CD-ROM (Dictionary & CD Rom) (Hardcover)

First of all, a disclaimer. I love dictionaries. Since I was a little girl, nothing has made me happier than selecting my dictionaries. OK, perhaps I should get a life. Also, I must say that words are my profession and my passion. As a copywriter and writer, I use dictionaries and style books constantly. I must tell you, however, there is a tremendous difference in dictionaries. I spend weeks, even months, selecting the one to buy.

In the case of this particular dictionary, there's no contest! I write a lot for the British market. I have many British clients and must write in British English. I love British English and, to be frank, I think it's more beautiful both spoken and written than our own. But there's far more differences in meaning and spelling and even in the words than one might imagine.

The other day I needed to look up "lorry" to discover it was in fact a truck.

The dictionary gives both the US and the UK meaning and spelling of all the words. It's exceptionally easy to read and use. I use the Palm version and the software more than the book. The software is just great. It's a fast, easy install. The software is easy to use. For example, take the word lorry. If you're American, you simply look up truck and it gives you both the US and the UK terms. It also has an audio that lets you hear the way the word sounds, in either US or UK English.

The software also has a thesaurus, pictures of many things you will look up, a study guide, a place for notes about different words and entries and much more.

I truly love this dictionary. It's probably my favorite (or should I say favourite dictionary.)

If you have need of a dictionary that gives you both the American and the British spellings and definitions, this is the only book you'll need. In fact, if you're a writer who has any reason at all to write in British English, this is a must-have. I know of no other dictionary that's superior to this one.

Highly recommended.

- Susanna K. Hutcheson



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