Dictionaries

dictionaries, specialist reference, language history

dictionaries, specialist reference, language history

Encyclopedia Britannica on CD-ROM

May 31, 2009 by Roy Johnson

the world’s largest print encyclopedia – on one DVD

Just imagine – people used to take out long-term loans to buy the multi-volume printed edition of Encyclopedia Britannica. Now it’s available on CD for the price of a single book. That’s the revolution in digital technology for you — and a lesson in eCommerce. Britannica started in the mid-18th century and went on to become the world’s most famous encyclopaedia. The latest CD version includes all the material from the 32-volume print edition, and there’s more too. They have also added the Merriam-Webster Dictionary and a world atlas packed with statistics and facts.

Other outstanding features are audio and video clips, natural language searching, and a series of topic tours – showing you superb multimedia presentations of chosen topics — from Aviation to Wildlife. There are 100,000 articles and entries on practically everything you could imagine — all of them authoritative, and some written by distinguished scientists and authors, such as Albert Einstein and Robert Louis Stevenson. On top of this impressive library of data, there are 12,000 photos and maps, timelines on science, ecology, medicine, music and literature; plus 125,000 active hyperlinks to resources on the Internet you can trust.

The materials add up to a hefty 2 GB over three CDs, and there are two options for using them. You can install the whole thing onto your hard disk. Alternatively, you can run a partial install, which is much lighter on resources, but requires disk-swapping during use. You can also update the materials – which is a big bonus.

Britannica is designed like a Web site, with a homepage which is always within reach. There are three ways of accessing information. You can Search, or use an A-to-Z feature, or Knowledge Navigator. You can also search once, then click between the results on all three of these interfaces.

It also has a facility that allows you to compare data between nations and create instant reports, graphs and tables for research or homework. As well as bookmarks, you can take notes on a particular item, or collate and lay out your collections in an attractive, publishable format.

The latest 2010 de lux edition is actually three encyclopaedias in one: Encyclopaedia Britannica Library, Britannica Student Library and Britannica Children’s Library. Our parents and grandparents would hardly have believed it. In terms of the sheer volume of information, this really is a stunning bargain.

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Encyclopedia Britannica on CD-ROM, updated annualy.

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Fowler’s Modern English Usage

October 29, 2009 by Roy Johnson

reprint of the classic first edition

Fowler’s Modern English Usage was first published in 1926. It was an immediate commercial success, selling 60,000 copies in its first year, and it went on to become the most influential set of guidelines on grammar and the use of the English language of the twentieth century. There were later versions revised by Sir Ernest Gowers in 1965 and Robert Burchfield in 1996, but this is a facsimile of Henry Fowler’s original first edition, with an introduction by the linguist David Crystal that sets it in context.

It’s reproduced photographically from the original – so the entries are arranged in two columns on the page, which was the style for books of this kind at the time. This presentation strikes me as doubly appropriate, because it captures the old-fashioned nature of the original, and it accurately reflects the slightly pedantic tone of the contents. Fowler is not unlike his great lexicological predecessor Samuel Johnson in issuing his judgements wrapped around with ironic asides, which makes for interesting reading.

David Crystal’s introductory essay explains how the book came to be published, and how Fowler was an important transition figure between the old, traditional proscriptive grammarians and the new more tolerant descriptive schools which were to follow.

Strangely enough, Fowler, whose name has become a metonym for his Dictionary, is often used by prescriptivists as an authority to support their arguments – when the fact is that his work as a whole reflects a flexible, subtle, and relativist attitude to language and the way it is used.

Fowler deals with all the classic problems in English language, such as the which/that dilemma, the split infinitive, and ending sentences with a preposition. He covers issues that are difficult even for native speakers of English (such as the who/whom issue).

The central problem is the question of usage. If enough people say different from does that make it right? Fowler was working in the days before any giant collections of real data were being used as a source of evidence to support linguistic claims. And he was using printed sources, not spoken, which today are regarded as primary.

However, it’s difficult to predict if he is going to be prescriptive or relativist on any single topic. Crystal points out that there are plenty of inconsistencies within the Dictionary. On some issues Fowler accepts widespread common usage; at others he asserts that something is right or wrong based on nothing more than his own opinion.

It should be said that the Dictionary is not merely a listing of words and their definitions, as in the normal sense of the term. It’s a compendium of how terms are used grammatically, the problems they pose, and the cultural baggage that surrounds them. A typical entry which captures both his stern sense of what is right and his ironic attitude in trying to correct it is as follows:

aggravate, aggravation. 1. The use of these in the sense of annoy, vex, annoyance, vexation, should be left to the uneducated. It is for the most part a feminine or childish colloquialism, but obtrudes occasionally into the newspapers. To aggravate has properly only one meaning—to make (an evil) worse or more serious. The right & the wrong use are shown in: (right) A premature initiative would be calculated rather to a. than to simplify the situation; (wrong) The reopening of the contest by fresh measures that would a. their opponents is the last thing that is desired in Ministerial circles. It is in the participle (and a very stupid, tiresome, aggravating man he is) that the vulgarism is commonest.

You can probably find copies of the first edition Fowler in the few remaining second hand bookshops – but it’s nice to have this reprint to put it back into general circulation again.

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David Crystal (ed) Fowler’s Modern English Usage: The Classic First Edition, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009, pp.784, ISBN: 0199535345

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Greenspeak: Ireland in her own words

July 17, 2009 by Roy Johnson

Dictionary-cum-encyclopedia of all things Irish

If you parachuted onto the Emerald Isle, would you know what to do with a griffaun, a mether, or a dolmen ? Did you know that carrageen (Irish moss) can be used as food or as an HIV/AIDS preventative? And where would the taxi driver be taking you if he was going to TCD? Greenspeak is an interesting proposition if you’re interested in language, Ireland and its culture, or unusual dictionaries. Its a dictionary-cum-encyclopedia on all matters Irish, and it’s a beautifully illustrated.

Entries run from ‘The Abbey Theatre’ and ‘absentee landlord’ to ‘ziggurat’ and the fact that there is no letter ‘Z’ in the Irish alphabet. Did you know that the words yes and no do not occur in the Irish language? Instead, the main verb in the question is repeated – as in ‘Did you see her?’ – to which the reply is ‘I did’ or ‘I did not’. Some of the terms explained are Irish language pure and simple; others are English words which have a particular or coded meaning in the context of Ireland; others are explanations of Irish history and institutions.

All of them are illustrated by examples drawn from genuinely Irish texts. So for instance, the entry for the apparently innocent-looking expression ‘big house’ runs as follows:

big house, Big House 1. Anglo-Irish country house, the principal house of the former landed Ascendency and often surrounded by a famine wall. Many were burned down in the 1920s. They feature in books, which became a literary genre, starting with Maria Edgeworth’s Castle Rackrent (1800). note: use ‘Irish Big House’ not ‘big Irish house’. Equates with standard English ‘manor’ or ‘stately home’. 2. (Ulster) may refer to mental asylum. 3. (US slang) penitentionary. [1823 (Letters from the Irish Highlands) < teach mor ‘big house’] See Baltimore Oriole.

There are over 2,000 entries covering every aspect of Ireland from food to folklore, and poetry to politics. The chronology and etymology of each word is given, and there is an index of people’s names, a glossary of abbreviations and acronyms.

There is understandably a recurrent strain of relations with neighbours ‘across the water’, but plenty of detailed entries on Ireland’s indigenous language, art, music, literature, history, personalities, and geography.

I get the impression of a huge labour of love and scholarship on Paddy Sammon’s part, and anybody with the slightest interest in Ireland or matters Irish is missing a treat if they don’t see this handsomely attractive book.

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Paddy Sammon, Greenspeak: Ireland in her own words, Dublin: Town House, 2002, pp.240, ISBN: 1860591442

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Heinemann English Dictionary

June 26, 2009 by Roy Johnson

popular dictionary – especially useful for schools

My copy of the Heinemann English Dictionary markets itself as “The most comprehensive school dictionary”, but it has been an invaluable companion for many years. First and foremost, it is small enough to pop into a briefcase or even a large handbag – useful when you need to check a word in secret to save face!

Secondly, the layout is clear and easy to use, helpfully stating the relevant part of speech in full, instead of by abbreviations. I particularly like the way phrasal verbs are set out – if you look up the word pull, each of its variations – pull apart, pull down, pull up and so on – is listed on a separate line, making them much easier to locate. Compound words such as water-hole are shown as separate headings, rather than hidden amongst a myriad of other variations on a word.

On a point which may be minor to some (but not to me) it is worth noting that a sans serif font is used for all the header words. This is proven to make words more accessible to beginner readers. As a teacher of Basic Skills to adults, I also appreciate the fact that common errors are pointed out. For example, the definition of the word principal includes a warning not to confuse it with principle. I have not seen this in other dictionaries.

An easily understood ‘pseudo-phonetic’ guide to pronunciation is provided. For example, euphonious is ‘yoo-foe-nee-us’. But, for me, one of its chief strengths is that it not only gives etymological information wherever possible, and an indication of colloquial usage where this may not be clear from the definition or may be useful to non-native speakers of English (eternity -‘It took an eternity for the doctor to arrive’), but that it also adds little titbits of information on selected words.

For example, just browsing through, I discovered that flannel is thought to be one of the few words which English has acquired from the Welsh. As I live in Chester, near the border with Wales, this little gem has opened a number of unexpectedly interesting conversations on linguistics. Nor would I have known, without the aid of these boxes, that the word assassin actually derives from an Arabic word for someone who eats cannabis!

Another surprising finding was the entry for the suffix -ette, for which Suffragette was the first known example. These little boxes are known as ‘Language Study Boxes’ and were designed specifically with the National Curriculum in mind. But who said children have to have all the fun? Incidentally, these extended entries are also provided for all the main parts of speech, giving useful examples for children (and adults) to learn from.

If I have any criticism at all to make, it is simply that my edition is too old, and so lacking in some of the more recent terms in the world of Information Technology – but, frankly, you can forgive an old friend almost anything …

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Heinemann English Dictionary, London: Heinemann Educational, 5th edition 2001, pp.1248, ISBN: 0435104241

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How to choose a dictionary

November 1, 2009 by Roy Johnson

from pocket-size to the world’s largest reference

Dictionaries can be something of a personal matter. People become very attached to their favourite amongst the most-used of all reference books. However, a few guidelines on how to choose a dictionary can easily be established. The first thing to understand is that they are not all the same. They have their own characters and peculiarities, and they are created for different users.

Let’s start with the question of size. The smallest dictionaries, which you really can fit into your pocket, are only suitable for a quick check of spelling and meaning in most commonly used words. These are mini-books the size of cigarette packets, which often end up in your desk drawer. The Oxford English Minidictionary manages to pack 40,000 entries and 50,000 definitions into a miraculously small space – and throws in a few extra pages which offer solutions to common problems. Keep this in your briefcase, or take it along to the pub quiz, but for serious work you’ll need something bigger.

The Little Oxford Dictionary is the next size up. This is a more serious attempt to be useful, with 51,000 entries and supplementary information on each word, including how it should be pronounced. It also includes occasional panels of advice on grammar and good usage, plus a supplement of words which have come into the language during the 1990s. This is one for the desktop or your briefcase, and probably the smallest you can go if you are going to consult a dictionary regularly.

Collins offer an alternative to the Oxford domination of the dictionary market. Their books are popular because they generally make clear page layout a priority. The Collins Pocket Dictionary contains 44,500 definitions, plus advice on grammar and common problems. It claims to be ‘in colour’ – but all this turns out to mean is that headwords and their variants are printed in red – which makes the pages look as if they’ve got measles.

Amongst the ‘portables’, the Heinemann English Dictionary is specially designed for use in schools. Not only is each entry very clearly presented, but parts of speech are spelt out in full, not abbreviated as is usual in dictionaries. Pronunciation is explained, and there are pull-out boxes with gems of etymology on certain words. It has been created with the UK National Curriculum in mind – and has proved to be popular as a reference for the classroom.

The New Oxford Dictionary focuses on English as it is really used in the late 20th century. Compiled after in-depth analysis of computerized databases of current English, this dictionary is the first to base its coverage on the evidence of real English. A rapid-reference page design separates out parts of speech, word histories, and phrases. The most modern meaning of each word, as used by the majority of people, is placed first within each entry. Contemporary rules are given on question of usage, providing relevant advice on problems old and new. Word history notes explain the linguistic roots of words and tell the story of how a word’s meaning and form have changed over time. Modern pronunciations are also given, using the internationally recognized system.

If you are buying a dictionary for serious use, paperbacks can be a false economy. Very often, hardback editions only cost slightly more – and they will last you a lifetime. Treat yourself!

It’s official! The word techie – a devotee of technology – has made it into the Chambers Dictionary. And there are a slew of other net-specific words too, including netiquette, browsing, applet, spam, cybersex and cybercafé. It just goes to show how the world of computing and electronic communications has advanced and changed our world. Of course, there are also those other little things that have become part of our lives: Prozac, sound bite, cellulite…

Collins dictionaries have always scored well on contemporary relevance and accessibility. The latest ‘Millennium’ edition of the Collins English Dictionary has increased the previous content by twenty percent, and there are useful guiding headers at the top of the pages, and the headword entries are printed in a no-nonsense non-serif font which I find unexpectedly easy to read. Besides answering the questions usual to dictionaries there are many encyclopedic entries which make this a valuable work of general reference. It also carries notes on language use which might be studied by those who think they speak English correctly.

Collins also have on offer a ‘two-books-in-one’ Dictionary and Thesaurus. This carries 71,000 entries, plus a quarter of a million synonyms. Normal dictionary entries appear in the top half of each page, whilst the bottom half presents lists of synonyms and antonyms. This is a simple but very effective device which encourages browsing and learning about language. A useful choice if you need to combine two sources of reference in one.

The most popular of the one-volume desktop dictionaries is the Concise Oxford Dictionary. This contains explanations, pronunciation, and the etymology of over 40,000 headwords. It also adds notes on any disputed or controversial terms, and includes American spellings. This is a great favourite with writers and students, and a basic minimum for a civilized library. If you can only afford one dictionary – make it this one.

If you want an illustrated dictionary, Encarta has recently been released as one volume – to some acclaim. It represents both the diversity of English as a language spoken around the world, and an attempt to capture up-to-date usage. If you want a picture of an aardvark and details of zygotes – Encarta has them. It offers variant spellings, meanings, and pronunciations in more than 100,000 entries comprising some 3.5 million words. If, for example, your Asian correspondent asks you for your biodata, you can quickly and painlessly learn that she needs your curriculum vitae. There are more than 3,000 black-and-white illustrations and 10,000 biographical and geographical entries. This is Microsoft making good use of its linguistic database.

Moving towards the heavier, more serious resources for writers, students, and teachers who want the sort of books in their homes which are normally only available in libraries, the New Shorter Oxford is a firm favourite. It’s big, comprehensive, and scholarly, and is based on the monumental Oxford English Dictionary. All entries have been re-written to reflect contemporary usage. This is one which should be considered as a minimum for serious writers and researchers. It comes in two handsomely-produced volumes, which are a sound investment. Its also just been re-issued in a Oxford’s new easy-to-read format.

The Compact OED [an accurate but amazingly misleading title] is just about as far as you would need to go without being a library acquisitions officer or a professional lexicographer. It’s a two-volume version of the complete OED – but photo-reduced, so that the text is laid out in a font size of about six points. The volumes are issued as a cased set with a magnifying glass – and you’ll need it. But here’s the good news. It works. So you save on storage space, yet have access to the contents of the twenty volume version. I picked one up second hand, and use it all the time.

Of course when we get to the biggest and best dictionary of the English Language, and a towering monument of bibliographic scholarship – then it’s the complete Oxford English Dictionary. This is now twenty printed volumes and had become rather expensive to produce. There are the two options available. You can have the convenience, speed, and reliability of the whole database on a single disk. Keep it in your D: drive and the world’s biggest lexical resource can be summoned with a mouse-click. The alternative is to subscribe to the online version, which will be permanently updated. It’s worth noting that the OED editors have decided to adopt an all-inclusive policy. New English, slang, jargon, and even obscenities are all listed.

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Lexicography: An Introduction

June 29, 2009 by Roy Johnson

how dictionaries are compiled and written

This book is an accessible introduction to lexicography – the study of dictionaries and how they are compiled. Howard Jackson provides a detailed overview of the history, types and content of everybody’s essential reference book. He starts with a very readable introduction to the grammar, structure, and history of the English language, then traces the development of dictionaries. This goes from their origins as lists of ‘hard’ (that is, foreign) words in the early Renaissance, via Dr Johnson’s famous attempt to ‘fix the meaning of words’ which when it appeared in 1754 carried a preface admitting that such an attempt was pointless.

Next comes the monumental Oxford English Dictionary, begun by John Murray in 1884, which took forty-four years to complete. He gives a detailed account of the editors’ attempts to be as systematic as possible, constructing their evidence from the work of volunteers. He covers the American tradition of democratic lexicography pioneered by Noah Webster in what emerged at the US popular option, Webster’s Third New International Dictionary of the English Language. There’s a careful explanation of the differences between shorter and concise dictionaries, and an account of what’s possible in the increasingly popular electronic dictionaries. These now commonly offer search facilities, sample pronunciations, and hypertext links between entries.

He discusses issues of range – what to include or exclude – how entries in a dictionaries are to be displayed, and how much detail is to be provided under each entry. This becomes most interesting when he tackles problems of including new terms, slang expressions, obsolete and taboo terms, and how much etymological history to provide.

The other highpoint is a consideration of the different ways in which words can be defined, when they have multiple meanings (horse, table, back) and often take their meaning from the context in which they are used.

Who will be interested in all this? Students and teachers of language, lexicographers of course, and anyone with an interest in the most popular source of reference in most cultures – the book (or CD-ROM) to which we turn when we need information on the spelling or meaning of a word.

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Howard Jackson, Lexicography: An Introduction, London: Routledge, 2002, pp.190, ISBN: 0415231736

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New Oxford Dictionary of English

July 29, 2009 by Roy Johnson

new single-volume compilation based on modern usage

The New Oxford Dictionary of English is a one-volume giant from Oxford University Press and a departure from their normal practice. Instead of being based on other dictionaries, it’s a completely new selection of words, compiled after in-depth analysis of computerized databases of contemporary English. The emphasis is very much on current relevance. Each word is defined first by its modern meaning, as used by the majority of people. Rulings are given on tricky questions of usage – [due to is not the same as because of, for instance]. These provide advice on old and new problems.

This populist approach may not please traditionalists, but the dictionary is certainly very user-friendly – and that’s in there too. The other principal novelty is the inclusion of encyclopedia-type entries. So, for instance, opening randomly at the letter ‘P’ – you are offered ‘perquisite’, followed by potted biographies of Charles Perrault, Fred Perry, and Persephone; then a micro-history of Persia, and an explanation of correct usage for the ‘personal pronoun’. I suspect these will make this a popular choice for those people who want a serious dictionary and a useful general reference book all in one.

Brief notes on word history explain the linguistic roots of words and tell the story of how a word’s meaning and form have changed over time. Modern pronunciations are also given, using the internationally recognized pronunciation system. A rapid-reference page design separates out parts of speech, word histories, and phrases.

This new revised edition embraces the OUP’s latest style of having the headword printed in a bold san-serif font, with the explanation which follows in Times Roman (serif). Extra notes then revert to san-serif in a grey box. All this variety makes it something of a typographic jumble – but it is easy to use. Here’s what a typical entry looks like:

ear ¹ > noun the organ of hearing and balance in humans and other vertebrates, especially the external part of this

• an organ sensitive to sound in other animals. •
[in sing.] an ability to recognise, appreciate, and reproduce sounds, especially music or language: an ear for rhythm and melody. • used to refer to a person’s willingness to listen and pay attention to something: she offers a sympathetic ear to worried pet owners.

The ear of a mammal is composed of three parts. The outer or external ear consists of a fleshy external flap and a tube leading to the eardrum or tympanum. The middle ear is an air-filled cavity connected to the throat, containing three small linked bones that transmit vibrations from the eardrum to the inner ear. The inner ear is a complex fluid-filled labyrinth including the spiral cochlea (where vibrations are converted to nerve impulses) and the three semi-circular canals (forming the organ of balance). The ears of other vertebrates are broadly similar.

– PHRASES be all ears informal
be listening eagerly and attentively. bring something (down) about one’s ears – bring something, especially misfortune, on oneself; she brought her world crashing about her ears. one’s ears are burning – one is subconsciously aware of being talked about or criticized. grin (or smile) from ear to ear: smile broadly. have something coming out of one’s ears: have a substantial or excessive amount of something: that man’s got money coming out of his ears. have someone’s ear have access to and influence with someone: he claimed to have the prime minister’s ear. have (or keep) an ear to the ground – be well informed about events and trends. in (at) one ear and out (at) the other – heard but disregarded or quickly forgotten: whatever you tell him seems to go in one ear and out the other. listen with half an ear not give one’s full attention. be out on one’s ear informal be dismissed or ejected ignominiously. up to one’s ears in informal very busy or deeply involved in: I’m up to my ears in work here.
— DERIVATIVES eared adjective [in combination] long-eared, earless adjective.
— ORIGIN Old English ëare, of Germanic origin; related to Dutch oor and German Ohr, from an Indo-European root shared by Latin auris and Greek ous.
ear ²> noun the seed-bearing head or spike of a cereal plant.
• N. Amer. a head of maize.
— ORIGIN Old English ëar, of Germanic origin; related to Dutch aar and German Ähre

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The New Oxford Dictionary of English, 2nd revised edn, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005, pp.2010, ISBN: 0198610572

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New Oxford Rhyming Dictionary

December 16, 2010 by Roy Johnson

grouped lists of rhyming words – plus cross references

As John Lennard says in his introduction to this godsend compendium for rhymers and poets: “Rhyme is everywhere – because it works. In advertising jingles, football chants, birthday card greetings, tabloid headlines, political slogans, and catchphrases, rhyme makes the sentiments more powerful and more memorable”. You can use the New Oxford Rhyming Dictionary to look up rhymes for specific words; browse sets of words for inspiration; use the tips in marginal notes to create extra sets of rhymes; or learn from examples given throughout the book how other writers past and present have used rhyme. The book is structured in quite an interesting way. First Lennard’s introduction explains the nature of rhyme and its prevalence in poetry and everyday life. He gives a very wide-ranging account of how poets have worked – from the early Renaissance to the present day.

The second part of the book is the heart of the matter – words grouped into sets according to their vowel sound. These are actually listed in the order of word endings – as in -ar, -ee, and -ng. So the listings for -ar run aargh, Accra, afar, aide mémoire and so on. This might sound complicated, but becomes clearer with use, as in the example which follows here.

The third part is an index which runs from Aachen (rhyme words darken and Petrachan) to zymurgy. Can you imagine trying to find a word that would rhyme with zymurgy? I realise you’ve probably never heard of the word – and neither had I. (It means ‘The branch of chemistry that deals with fermentation processes, as in brewing….’) But that’s how thorough the listings are.

What you are likely to do is look up a term in the 4500 word index. There you will be directed to the rhyming terms listed in part two. These are arranged in order of correspondence, where the first word is a perfect rhyme, and subsequent entries less so. For instance if you look up the word lover in the index you are referred to section 12,87 where you find the following options:

disapprover, hoover, improver, louvre (US louver), manoeuvre (US maneuver), mover, outmanoeuvre (US outmaneuver), reprover, Suva, Tuva, Vancouver
cover, Glover, hardcover, lover, plover, undercover
vulva, triumvir, slipcover, Cordova, baklava, helluva, Ulanova, Genova, Vaishnava, Ostrava, Vltava
fervour (US fervor), Minerva, Nerva, observer, server, swerver
time-server

The choice amongst these terms leads to interesting issues of pronunciation and the politics of accent and language use – which Lennard touches on in his introduction. The examples of good rhyme he gives throughout the book are an interesting and very unstuffy selection which includes classics, modern poetry, and even song lyrics.

The new second edition of this work has added fifty extra pages of recently coined words – such as Americano, iPod, sub-prime,, and vuvuzela. These are drawn from the huge databases held by Oxford Dictionaries as part of the corpus on which their linguistic research is based.

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John Lennard (ed), New Oxford Rhyming Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press, second edition, 2012, pp.448, ISBN: 0199652465

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New Oxford Spelling Dictionary

August 4, 2009 by Roy Johnson

spellings, hyphens, capitals, and presentation of terms

Unlike a conventional dictionary, the New Oxford Spelling Dictionary lists words without giving their definitions. So – you might well ask – if there are no explanations of meanings, what information does such a book contain? Quite a lot, as it turns out. For instance, it shows distinctions between words which might easily be confused – as in hare/hair – and it also indicates grammatical parts of speech – as in double fault used as a noun and double-fault used as a verb.

It also makes firm recommendations where there are variants in possible spellings (use judgement), shows where capitals are required in names, gives American spellings, and shows where logical word breaks occur for hyphenation and compounds. Entries run from aa (lava) and Aachen (which used to be Aix-la-Chapelle) to zymotic and zymurgy. This particular guidance makes it an ideal reference tool for those working with printed or word-processed text.

The reference data is based on the reputable scholarship of the Oxford Dictionary of English. It contains over 110,000 words and names, and in the latest edition includes a large number of compound words as well as very basic information about people and places. So, for instance, Enver Hoxha is the Albanian prime minister, and Santa Catarina is a Brazilian state.

A typical entry on proper nouns shows the variants on a personal name, with the pipe (these things – || -) showing the word breaks.

Kath|er|ine also
Cath|ar|ine,
Cath|er|ine,
Cath|ryn,
Kath|ar|ine,
Kath|ryn

And the same presentation of typical word is rendered thus:

tar|tar + s
(deposit on teeth etc.;
violent-tempered person;
in ‘cream of tartar’.
‡ tartare, ta-ta)

This last detail is an injunction that the term should not be confused with tartare or goodbye.

Of course you still need some idea of how a word is spelled (or spelt) in order to look it up. But this dictionary makes the job less distracting than using a normal dictionary, because it eliminates all that interesting stuff. Less may not be more, but it’s certainly faster.

This will be of most interest to authors, editors, proofreaders or typesetters, for whom it provides an ideal way to ensure the best spelling practice working on any sort of text – newspapers, magazines, reports, theses, or even websites. It has also been produced to team up neatly with the New Oxford Dictionary for Writers and Editors and New Hart’s Rules to form an ideal reference set.

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New Oxford Spelling Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005, pp.596, ISBN: 0198608810

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New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary

August 4, 2009 by Roy Johnson

two-volume reference dictionary with etymologies

When checking a word, I usually reach first for the Concise Oxford – because it’s right in front of me on the desk. You can pick it up in one hand. If that doesn’t give the answer, I go to the New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary. This involves a trip to the bookcase, because it’s in two volumes – and they’re heavy. The term ‘Shorter’ for this publication is almost misleading, because it’s a big, serious, scholarly work of reference. It’s only shorter in being an abridged version of the monumental Oxford English Dictionary.

In recent editions however, the material draws on the OED’s ongoing revision, as well as its own independent research program. The entries are slightly abbreviated, but still rich in historical etymology. This is a dictionary for those concerned with lexicological scholarship – people who need to know both the origin of a term, and how it has been used in printed history since the Renaissance. The headword is recorded in all its possible forms, and the linguistic, grammatical, and bibliographical apparatus surrounding it is rendered via a code of abbreviations. A typical entry might run as follows:

Endeavour (ende’vðr) sb. ME. [app. f. next vb.] 1. The action of endeavouring; action directed to obtain an object; a strenuous attempt. †2. Philos. Used by Hobbs: =L. conatus [see quote.] -1667.
1. On this high e. The light of praise shall shine WORDSW. Phr. To do one’s endeavour(s): to do all one can; My best endeauours shall be done herein Merch. V. II.ii.182. 2. These small beginnings of Motion, within the Body of Man…are commonly called E. HOBBES
Endeavour (ende’vðr) v. ME.[f. EN–¹+DEVOIR sb. ; cf. F. se mettre en devoir de faire quelque chose to make it one’s duty to do something; hence, to endeavour.] †1. refl. To exert onself -1655; †trans. to exert (one’s power, etc.) -1642. †intr. for refl. To exert oneself; to direct one’s efforts -1624. 3. intr. To try, strive, make an effort for a specified object; to attempt strenuously. The only mod. sense.) 1594. 4. trans. To use effort for; to attempt (now arch.) 1581; †to try to fulfil (a Law) MILT.
3. To e. to compromise matters FROUDE. To e. at eminence JOHNSON, after more riches MILL. 4. To e. the extirpation of Popery CLARENDON. Hence Endea’vourer one who endeavours; an aspirant; also spec., a member of the Christian Endeavour Society founded in U.S. in 1881. †Endea’vourment, endeavour.

You can see from this that it illustrates definitions with quotations which show precisely how the meanings of words have changed over the centuries. Each entry provides a wealth of information, including history and meaning, pronunciation, etymology, definitions, variant spellings, irregular inflections, quotations, idiomatic phrases and a record of the word’s use. Some entries run to almost two columns on the page.

Thousands upon thousands of changing meanings are followed through history, illustrated by more than 83,000 quotations, from Benjamin Franklin to Lord Byron, and Jane Austen to Ricky Gervais.

The new edition has 600,000 definitions, 2,500 new words since the last edition in 2003, and 83,000 illustrative quotations. There’s a full index of the authors cited, a guide to pronunciation, and it comes in either the two-volume printed edition, or on a CD-ROM.

The obvious advantage of the CD version is that you can use the SEARCH feature – and the program also searches by anagram and by rhyme, by quotation and by etymology. Perusing the headword group is like flipping the pages of the book version. You can also copy the CD sub-directories onto your hard disk, which means you can access the material without loading the compact disk. This improves performance, and leaves your CD drive free for other tasks.

If you don’t want the complete Oxford English Dictionary this is the next best thing. It will last you a lifetime. In fact you’ll be able to pass it on to your children and grandchildren.

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The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary (in 2 volumes) Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007, pp.3800, ISBN: 0199206872

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two-volume reference dictionary with etymologies

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