How often do you buy a (new) dictionary?
Posted: Tue Oct 12, 2010 12:58 am
David Crystal once opined in an interview that one should buy a new, "updated" dictionary at least every five years, and at the rate ELT publishers release new editions if not products, they apparently think the same.
However, the core language doesn't change much in so short a time, and one has to wonder sometimes if the new vocabulary selected for inclusion is always that essential (see for example the words 'prepone' - mainly a concession to Widdowson's demands, it would seem - 'prebuttal', 'fakie' etc in the following old thread: http://forums.eslcafe.com/teacher/viewt ... 0259#30259 ); certainly, I get the slight feeling now that the main reason Longman recently released a "fifth edition" of the LDOCE was to compete better with the OALD7's (and presumably also the 8's) CD-ROM rather than the book itself (I mean, the LDOCE4's CD-ROM was quite plain in comparison, though the book itself seemed fine); and the Cambridge ALD2's CD-ROM was streets ahead of the OALD6's and even the LDOCE4's, etc etc. All just a load of twiddling ultimately? (Or maybe I am just somebody who's upset he has to make do with a plain LDOCE4 CD-ROM versus the snazzier 5's!
).
Anyway, how often do you buy dictionaries? And what types exactly do you get? Just a flagship ALD, or native-speaker desk/reference dictionaries, or thesauri, or specialized stuff (for idioms, phrasal verbs, collocations etc), or bilingualized (would seem a good way to learn about more than just English!) and/or foreign-language ones? A lot of teachers don't seem to buy even one, and thus go potentially decades dictionaryless. (Are you one of them?!
). Then, there are the real anoraks (compared yes even to me!) who complain about a later edition of the COBUILD say having cut the word 'sidewalk' whilst still retaining 'pavement' ("Why Fluffy, WHY?!" 
).
However, the core language doesn't change much in so short a time, and one has to wonder sometimes if the new vocabulary selected for inclusion is always that essential (see for example the words 'prepone' - mainly a concession to Widdowson's demands, it would seem - 'prebuttal', 'fakie' etc in the following old thread: http://forums.eslcafe.com/teacher/viewt ... 0259#30259 ); certainly, I get the slight feeling now that the main reason Longman recently released a "fifth edition" of the LDOCE was to compete better with the OALD7's (and presumably also the 8's) CD-ROM rather than the book itself (I mean, the LDOCE4's CD-ROM was quite plain in comparison, though the book itself seemed fine); and the Cambridge ALD2's CD-ROM was streets ahead of the OALD6's and even the LDOCE4's, etc etc. All just a load of twiddling ultimately? (Or maybe I am just somebody who's upset he has to make do with a plain LDOCE4 CD-ROM versus the snazzier 5's!
).Anyway, how often do you buy dictionaries? And what types exactly do you get? Just a flagship ALD, or native-speaker desk/reference dictionaries, or thesauri, or specialized stuff (for idioms, phrasal verbs, collocations etc), or bilingualized (would seem a good way to learn about more than just English!) and/or foreign-language ones? A lot of teachers don't seem to buy even one, and thus go potentially decades dictionaryless. (Are you one of them?!
). Then, there are the real anoraks (compared yes even to me!) who complain about a later edition of the COBUILD say having cut the word 'sidewalk' whilst still retaining 'pavement' ("Why Fluffy, WHY?!" ).