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I recently tackled a book that was rather above my French reading level. It only took about half an hour spent fumbling with my Larousse before I plunked down $
by bunderbunder 8y ago
I recently tackled a book that was rather above my French reading level. It only took about half an hour spent fumbling with my Larousse before I plunked down $6 on their iOS app so that I could get back to reading my book. That weekend, my trusty old dictionary and I paid a visit to the used bookstore.
It's hard for me to imagine an information technology that's been more thoroughly superseded than the print dictionary. Electronic media make it faster to look words up in the first place, sure. But I also get audible pronunciations, and, if a definition includes another word I don't know, I can just tap on it to navigate to its definition. A print encyclopedia, you can at least sit down with a volume and just read it, and it's an experience that's sometimes more fun than surfing Wikipedia, by virtue of feeling a bit more random and serendipitous. But using a dictionary is always vaguely unpleasant; all you want to do is accomplish a specific task and then get back to your business.
The author is right. They really do derive most their value these days from being, in effect, large blocks of wood.
- larkeith 8y agoI've had the reverse impression over recent years: dictionary sites have become so bloated and unusable, between ads, comment systems, inefficient JS, and abysmal "mobile-friendly" pages I've gone back to my old hardcover whenever convenient. I imagine part of this is use-case, however: I tend to use a dictionary infrequently, mainly when I'm reading with the shelf within reach, so the overhead of launching an app or navigating to a website is a lot higher than practicing a second language, where you might keep the app open. And of course it never lost its place as the canonical Scrabble-checker.
- Symbiote 8y agoI use Wiktionary — no ads, comments, and it's fast. My father had an "Official Scrabble Word List" book, which was just a list of words without definitions. An app would be even better for this: you could take a photo of the word, and it could give a simple yes/no without any chance of "accidentally" seeing other words.
- salutonmundo 8y ago+1 for Wiktionary. As for Scrabble, https://scrabble.hasbro.com/en-us/tools#dictionary https://scrabble.hasbro.com/en-us/tools#dictionary works just fine, although it needs JavaScript.
- thaumasiotes 8y agoFree dictionary sites are pretty appalling. Paid dictionary apps are great. I've never actually used the online OED, but I imagine it's great.
- bunderbunder 8y agoAgreed that the sites aren't so good. I went with Larousse's app, which isn't perfect, but works well. Their website, on the other hand, is fairly painful to use. Though, agreed with others that Wiktionary is good. It often offers higher-quality entries than the commercial ones, too.