Chapter 7:
Answering Questions about Words – Dictionaries
Updates:
- Acronyms, Initialisms & Abbreviations Dictionary
The 37th edition of the Acronyms, Initialisms & Abbreviations Dictionary was published by Thomson Gale in 2006. Definitions for over 872,000 terms can be found in the new edition. The 38th edition is due for publication in June 2007. .
- American Heritage College Dictionary, Fourth Edition. 2007. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Due for publication release in April 2007, the fourth edition claims a wide spectrum of updates and enhancements in graphics. Purchase of the print dictionary also allows the buyer to download an eReference Suite that includes the respected American Heritage Dictionary as well. The fourth edition of the American Heritage High School Dictionary was released early in 2007.
- Barrett, Grant. The Official Dictionary of Unofficial English. 2006.McGraw-Hill.
As creator of The Double-Tongued Word Wrester Dictionary website (www.doubletongued.org) as well as project editor for the Historical Dictionary of American Slang, Barrett brings his experience to the print medium in this entertaining and unique publication. Over 750 words including the Austrian mouthful, Verwaltungsvereinfachungsmassnahmen which ironically enough refers to the drive against bureaucratic jargon, are included.
- Chambers Dictionary, 2006.
A new look has been designed for the 10th edition of Chambers. The new edition has added over 500 new words. For those who are not too spoffish (fussy), the new edition has continued to include its trademark quirky additions to ensure that no user ever feels like a jobbernowl (stupid person). The Chambers continues to be the official dictionary for Scrabble in the UK.
- The Chicago Manual of Style Online. 2006.
A complete online and CD-ROM version of the 15th edition of The Chicago Manual is now available. The online version provides access to both the Manual as well as the popular Chicago Style Q&A. The CD-ROM edition is fully searchable with hyperlinked cross-references.
- Fergusson, Rosalind. Collins Rhyming Dictionary. 2007. UK: HarperCollins.
This new dictionary, due for publication in the summer of 2007, aims to provide a useful guide on the best use of a rhyming resource, along with a comprehensive index, a list of words that have no rhyme, and panels that present examples of rhyme in action.
- Historical Dictionary of American Slang
The final volume of this exhaustive, and probably exhausting, dictionary was not published as scheduled in 2006. Instead, there were reports that the Oxford University Press that had taken over the project from Random House, was planning to produce two more volumes with Volume III covering P through part of S and Volume IV completing S through Z along with an extensive bibliography.
- Merriam Webster’s Visual Dictionary, 2006.
Edited by Jean-Claude Corbeil and Ariane Archambul and published by Merriam, this visual dictionary provides more than 20,000 definitions in addition to 6,000 color illustrations, and a color-coded thumb index. The inclusion of definitions in a visual dictionary marks this as an unusual publication.
- The New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English. 2005. Tom While the original Partridge Dictionary was the definitive record of British slang prior to 1945, the new edition is resolutely global in its coverage. The two volumes hold over 2000 pages of 65,000 slang words from the entire English-speaking world. A Nebraska sign in the U.S. therefore refers to the ‘completely flat reading on an electrocardiogram’; while sadlands in the U.K. describe the suburbs of a city; and a scrubber in Australia is quite simply an ‘unattractive woman’.
- OED Online.
Updates and news about OED Online as well as the popular Word of the Day feature is now available through an RSS feed. Details can be accessed at: http://oed.com/services/rss-feed.html
- Visual Dictionary, Revised and updated. 2007. London: Dorling Kindersley.
6,000 stunning images with clear detail are provided in this lush visual dictionary update. DK Publishing has also published a series of bilingual visual dictionaries in French, German, Italian, and Spanish.
Further Reading:
- Gilliver, Peter, Jeremy Marshall and Edmund Weiner. 2006. Ring of Words: Tolkien and the Oxford English Dictionary. New York: Oxford University Press.
The importance of individual editors in the crafting of word definitions and the subsequent growth of the OED is brought vividly to life in this new book by the current editors of the dictionary. The early history is dramatized through a surprising link with Tolkien who was an assistant to Henry Bradley, a precocious Victorian philologist and lexicographer who became the second editor of the early OED.
- Hall, Joan. American Dialects.
A twenty minute podcast on the history and relevance of the Dictionary of American Regional English (DARE) is provided by the Chief Editor, Joan Houston Hall. It can be accessed at: http://polyglot.lss.wisc.edu/dare/dare.html.
- Hitchings, Henry. Defining the Word. 2005. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Biography cum social history, this book is aptly sub-titled The Extraordinary Story of Dr. Johnson’s Dictionary. It provides an encompassing overview of the idiosyncratic nature of early dictionary creation. In dramatic contrast to the current reliance on lexical corpora, the 1775 classic Dictionary of the English Language produced by Johnson was a highly personal reflection of his moods, views, and perceptions of the world.
- Pack, Thomas. 2006. “Word Crazes: Slang Dictionaries”. Information Today Vol.23, No.5 (May): 41-42.
The article provides a comprehensive and updated listing of websites focusing on slang. A variety of sites ranging from terms used in the American penal system, to college talk, London slang, and even nonexistent words are cited.
Trends:
Heightened accessibility to online dictionaries continues. Word Web, available at http://wordweb.info can be downloaded to provide dictionary meanings and a thesaurus that is accessible from all Windows programs. The free online version offers almost 300,000 words and phrases; while fee based versions expand both the number of words defined as well as providing features such as customization and wild card searches.
The ability to bypass browser services and consult this resource while working in a Word program marks Word Web as an innovative step forward in the world of online dictionaries. |
