Okay, I searched and this topic didn't come up in the results.
And I hope I don't inconvenience anyone who thinks it's a YART.
Well, someone who is interested in words and language should have a good dictionary, one that's really big and comprehensive. I have always had "The World Book Dictionary." I don't know if anyone has heard of it, but mine is kind of an old dictionary from about the '70's or something which was handed down from my parents. I really like it, but I don't know if it's good (i.e. if it fits some arbitrary opinion of what is "good"). I'm thinking of getting a different dictionary (which is at least up-to-date). What do you suggest? OED? Websters?
Dictionaries are pretty "analog" nowadays, any word that I need to know I just look it up on Answers.com or Onelook. But the Internet is not really good for browsing, just flipping through pages and reading words that catch your attention.
So what do you think?
i think we did do a 'census' of what/how many dictionaries we owned.. (but not which was favorite, or most commonly used.)
OED is well the gold standard.. i wish i owned one.
(in my divorce, i got every dictionary EXCEPT the OED-He got that) that left me with over a dozen, plus other word books (like Peter Bowler's The Superior Person's Book of Words--(and his second book of words), and Bill Bryson's the Mother Tongueamd Made in America or Steven Pinker's The Language Instinctor Words and Rules--some of those i bought, some came to me. i think the most valuable dictionary i own is Partridge's dictionary of the vulgar and slang.(still packed away)i have a number of specialized dictionaries:
one for foriegen terms, one for problem words and expressions, one for sceintific terms, one for printing and graphic arts terms. (and others)
I love my Chambers, and generally use it, or Websters New World, and for back up i do have the Oxford Univeral Dictionary. (which is just too dam big to be everyday useful, and too small to be complete--really quite useless!)
before i moved, (some 3 years ago!) i used to have a small desk top spelling dictionary. one day i will find it. in the meanwhile.. i happily believe that is a dull mind that can only think of one way to spell any given word...
and yes, there are service's like onelook, but most of here still like a proper dictionary.
(in my previous residence, i had built in bookshelves in every room (all 7) plus more in the basement! i have slowely been building/buying bookshelves and unpacking. but i have a ways to go. (about 50% of my books now have a proper home on a shelf!)
Mecha, it is comparatively expensive compared to a hot dog but far more nutritious... I'd go for the OED on disc for the endless rewards of delving into (as Helen says) gold-standard research. It can be run in the background and called up as a context-sensitive link to any highlighted word in whatever other program you're running.
For a handy print version, any of the leading houses will give a good quick reminder; but nothing touches OED for sheer interest to the real language maven.
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nothing touches OED for sheer interest to the real language maven.
Wot he said. My favourite browsing dictionary, too.
The OED, for me, will always be, in its first edition, my preferred monolingual English dictionary. Though, the work of many people, it was more than half edited by James Murray. The Merriam-Webster's Collegiate still has a place in my heart since it was the first dictionary I owned; I got it on my 8th birthday. Lewis and Short for Latin, even though the Oxford is more up to date. Liddell-Scott for classical Greek, forever tied, as it were, with little Alice of Alice in Wonderland. For German, Grimm's Wörterbuch, and Dr Adam Wrede for his priceless Neuer kölnischer Sprachschatz. Monier-Williams' Sanskrit Dictionary, even if he did crib some from the St Petersburg dictionary. I have always coveted a Du Cange.
OED for me too. I have an old Compact Edition (produced in 1979), which is a full 12 volumes shot down to fit into two heavy tomes. You need a magnifying glass to read a full entry, but even so...
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OED for me too. I have an old Compact Edition (produced in 1979), which is a full 12 volumes shot down to fit into two heavy tomes. You need a magnifying glass to read a full entry, but even so...
Yep, that's the one we have, too. It's the standard. But we also use all the American Heritage dictionaries; they are especially good for usage and etymology. Whatever you choose, you certainly need an upgrade from the World Book you have!! The Merriam-Webster Collegiate might be a good starter dictionary for you, as a college student.
Nah, I don't want anything standard. I want something where I'll be able to find obscure words in.
Hmm, so far the OED is the consensus.
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Nah, I don't want anything standard. I want something where I'll be able to find obscure words in.
Hmm, so far the OED is the consensus.
By standard I meant the OED is the one against which others are measured. Perhaps I should have said "gold standard."
Gold standard: Amazon.com has the special blue leather OED for only $6000! (There's also an extra $54.50 shipping charge over whatever it costs to ship 152 pounds of books.)
And many UBS's have the compact edition in their inventories for less than a hundred bucks, which is what I paid for mine.
Be advised there are two editions of it, though, one a book club edition and one a major publishing house edition. Sorry I cannot tell you the difference, though the place I bought mine from said they routinely turn down the book club edition. Of course mine may be a book club edition and they were just having me on.
But as someone said, it's the standard against which all others are measured.
Wow, I just searched it on Amazon and that $6000 set looks like an encyclopedia?
Are all of those books just a dictionary?
If so that's awesome!
::drools::
I can already imagine just picking up 'M' and just browsing through for hours and hours, then skimming through 'Z.'
I need to start saving up!
(Okay I need an actual job first)
By the way, what do they mean by "cross-references"?
And what's so different about the etymologies?
>Are all of those books just a dictionary?
right; and those 20 volumes can be had on 1 CD-ROM, which is what maverick was promoting. you can even browse, after a fashion, in that you have two windows: one with the particular word you're viewing and the other with an entry list containing words immediately surrounding that headword.
a worthy option, at about one fourth the cost, is Merriam-Wesbster's 3rd New International (W3) on CD-ROM. It has an equal number of entries (for what that's worth), but less documentation* in back of them.
it should also be noted that both of these excellent resources are available online via subscription. W3 is available for an almost reasonable annual rate of $30. while the OED2 subscription is still exorbitant, it can often be accessed via proxy through your local library.
*etymology, citations, etc.
edit: A cross-reference is a link from one dictionary entry to another for purposes of comparison or explanation. With the CD or online versions, these are hot links.
Oh, cross references are when they compare similar words and highlight their difference (like satire, irony, sarcasm)? Okay.
Hmm. Yeah, I might think of adding some kind of online subscription or CD-Rom as well. I could have the physical form and it's digital counterpart or something...
Actually, I don't like more things on my computer. I spend way too much time on it as it is (pretty much a minimum of 8 hours a day). I don't need more reasons to be on it. That's why I don't do things like e-books and watch DVDs on my laptop, when I can just do that without a computer.
Do you know if it has those entries in the beginning that talks about things like grammar, roman numerals, differences in american and british english, etc.? My World Book has those kinds of articles.
I used to think that Merriam-Webster was best; that was back when one of the main purposes of a dictionary was to determine how a word was supposed to be used. However, in my estimation they've been going steadily downhill. Used to be, for instance, they'd identify neologisms, slang, etc, as "vulgar"
Now, though, after it has been misused for a while Merriam blithely enters any new usage, even if it's directly contradictory to the original meaning
Thus we are entering an era when any word can mean almost anything, and correct usage is defined as dropping the term wherever it seems to fit, in the secure knowledge that Merriam will eventually adopt it