Rating: 
Summary: Significantly Improved Classic
Review: This dictionary, MW11 for short, may be the first to list bubkes, coscenarist, or MEGO. Entries now appear in a sans-serif font, basically an improvement, though the abbreviation for Illinois looks absurd.The cover claims 10,000 new words and meanings, including long ball, peloton, rabbit-eared bandicoot (who would seek that under r rather than b?), dance card, megapixel, qi, ki. So what is missing from the previous edition, MW10? An informal survey of a half dozen pages shows that practically nothing of value is gone (lonelily, pein, Daoist are deleted). Changes include a few new senses, illustrative quotes, revised definitions, and antedatings. The entry for -er now shows beautifuller with double l, in concord with the entry for -ful. There are about 70 more pages; MW10 had only about 5 more than MW9. The total number of entries should be greeted with skepticism. There are about a thousand undefined entries in a list of "non-" words, more than a thousand in the un- list, and several thousand more in sixteen additional lists. If it occurs to you to seek coscenarist in the co- list, these lists might be of use. There are also a great many highly technical terms, such as ethylenediaminetetraacetate(s); writings that might contain these are apt to contain quite a few terms not found in this or any similar dictionary. Nonetheless, MW11 looks pretty good after a comparison of a few random pages of this dictionary with the corresponding parts of four similarly-priced dictionaries. At least two competitors have such entries as blank endorsement, blankety-blank, terra alba, or blague, but most or all omit such MW11 entries as: term of art, blanket chest, or the adjective terminate. Recently I found the word Atropos in a 1950 New-Zealand/British novel; it's not in MW11 (except in atropine's etymology), but was found in the competitors; on the other hand, only MW11 offers an explanation of what people who quirk this or that in a (usually) British novel are doing. Definitions are sometimes a little unclear. The 85-word definition for gyroscope is apt to set your head spinning, and you may need to reread it to determine a gyroscope's purpose (I'm not sure it says). There's a sensible usage note for "hopefully", but MW11's appeal to "disjuncts" is less likely to persuade than the competitors' references to "sentence adverbs" or something similar. Many more illustrative examples would help. One appendix contains foreign words and phrases; it's unclear why "a la mode" or Weltschmerz are in the main listing with "a la page" or Weltbild in the appendix. Other appendices list biographic and geographic entries, so, confronted with an unfamiliar proper noun, you may be unsure where to look. Gretna Green, is that biographical or geographical? (Neither, but MW11 has it nonetheless.) These appendices suit the publisher, since during MW11's life there will be new censuses that affect the geographic entries and deaths, elections, awards, etc., that affect the biographic entries, and Merriam can reset the relatively few pages of the appendices more easily than many pages of the main listing. Nonetheless, it is inconvenient for the user. The final page contains the addresses for the Language Research Service. The introduction to MW10 informed us that there is no evidence for the form "merer", so years ago I sent the LRS their first citation; it happens that OED provided another, and an Internet search for "even merer" provides four more, but MW11's introduction still claims that there is no evidence for it. LRS is better at providing information; it gave me a Robert Frost citation to accompany my grandaunt's expression "the cat wanted the guest to make of her". A nice feature is the date of earliest known appearance for each word. MW11 extends this to words like "jehu" that come from a proper name (less clear is why Jehu is in the main listing rather than the biographical appendix), though possibly the date applies to Jehu rather than jehu. Similarly, the date for clueless applies to its literal use, not to the modern idiomatic use whose date might interest you. Definitions are given in date order, so you can usually see how meanings develop over time. Most unfamiliar words have only a single definition, or the unfamiliar meaning you seek may be the oldest, so this is a win-win feature for the user. The dictionary comes with a wonderful CD (optional at higher price), with which many objections disappear. It is much harder to find coscenarist, bo, ked, or Gretna Green with the print edition than with the CD, which incidentally expands abbreviations. You can locate all entries having a usage note containing the word Scottish. Unfortunately, there does not seem to be an easy way to search for all occurrences of Scottish in definitions, etymologies, and usage notes simultaneously, though there is a cumbersome way to do this with an advanced search. It seems pronunciations aren't searchable beyond rhymes and homophones, so for example you cannot find all words with the rare sound that ends "smooth", or all pronunciations marked with the obelus (division sign) that indicates controversy. (Merriam is invited to add the obelus to the first pronunciation of bruschetta, which deviates from the Italian.) With the CD you can also find the other 27-letter single-word entry, the longest word(s) with no repeated letter, the anagrams of abcdeflos or Minnesota, or all words whose earliest known appearance falls in a particular year (the most recent appears to be 2000, for tanga, the Tajiki "cent"); if solving crosswords, you can find words of the form ?p??m?. Certainly I would not recommend buying a college dictionary without a CD version. Beyond that it is hard to choose, if you can afford just one. My inclination is that if you are involved in scientific or technical pursuits, this is probably the right one. Otherwise, you may be better off with one of the competitors. I don't recommend owning precisely two dictionaries however; you will need a third as a tiebreak.
Rating:
Summary: The New Standard for American Dictionaries
Review: This edition of the M-W's Collegiate Dictionary sets a completely new high standard for American dictionaries and in fact -- for any reference book anywhere. This dictionary is everything that a good reference book should be -- self-contained, complete, easy-to-use, extremely well printed, and perfectly consistent. The abbreviations are not overused, the definitions are clear and exhaustive. Inflected forms and alternate spellings are easy to locate and identify. The usage and synonyms notes are of an enormous value for anyone who reads or writes English, and for me it clarified many meanings and different usages (i am not a native English speaker). Another great thing is that the editors treated the etimologies with due respect, so even though this dictionary is supposed to be "abridged", it is very complete. And the quality of printing is so wonderful, that i enjoy reading this dictionary just for fun. Although it is called "Collegiate" it is useful to any person of any age and background, not just for college students. Needless to say, it never disappoints when i'm looking for words. To put it short -- i don't have enough words of praise for this book.
Rating:
Summary: Great Book, But...
Review: This is a superlative book -- better, word for word, than any other dictionary.
Rating:
Summary: Thorough, well-written, with a good CD version
Review: This is a very high quality collegiate dictionary. I am a member of a word puzzle organization ... and this is our standard reference, along with the unabridged version, "Webster's Third New International Dictionary". Many very obscure words show up in puzzles, but it is relatively rare I find I have to go to the unabridged dictionary to look them up. In addition to being thorough (with excellent sections such as biography, geographical names, and foreign words and phrases (such as "en plein jour" or "inshallah") it includes compressed but informative etymological data. For example, the entry on "spacious" has this - ME, fr. AF spacioux, fr. L spatiosus, fr. spatium: space, room (14c)"; in a little over a single line you get a long lineage; though I should mention that this has been slightly corrected since the tenth edition of this dictionary. You may have to learn some of the abbreviations (Middle English, Anglo-French, 14th century) but I found them generally intuitive and didn't need to look them up much at all. In addition, there are excellent usage paragraphs scattered throughout. These are of two types. One type compares the usage of different words with very similar meanings. For example, the entry on "satiate" provides a usage paragraph that compares "satiate", "sate", "surfeit", "cloy", "pall", "glut" and "gorge", identifying the precise differences of usage between them. The paragraph is cross-referenced at each of the other six words, so you don't have to just stumble across satiate to find it. The other kind of usage paragraph discusses correctness. A good example is "hopefully", which in its sense "I hope that" is controversial. The dictionary asserts the validity of this controversial use, which is sure to annoy some purists, but it does acknowledge the debate and cite grammatical arguments for its position. There are quite a few new words (my favourite is "dead-cat bounce") and edits to all sections. The only major change, though, is that the abbreviations section has been eliminated; abbreviations are now included in the main body of the dictionary. The dictionary is available online at m-w.com, and I strongly recommend you take a look at it. There is a CD-ROM for sale too, which is worth getting as it adds some fancy search features, though if you're like me you'll want the paper version to keep by the bed. Note that if you have the unabridged MW CD too (the third edition of their New International Dictionary) then the same interface allows you to choose which dictionary to search -- a very nice feature. Purchase of the dictionary also gives you a complimentary year's subscription to the m-w website, which is worth having -- though be warned that it will automatically renew in a year for $ unless you choose to auto-cancel. --This text refers to an edition which conatins a CD-ROM. Not all editions of this item contain a CD. Please check the item desription for further information.--
Rating:
Summary: Worth the price for the CD-ROM alone
Review: Unlike prescriptive dictionaries such as the American Heritage Dictionary, which rely on self-appointed panels of "experts" to decide what correct usage should be, descriptive dictionaries such as this and Merriam-Webster's Third International try to keep pace with how the language is actually used by speakers. This may explain why the Webster's Collegiate dictionaries have been the standard reference in the American publishing industry for a long time. This is easily the best dictionary of its class, period. It has an extraordinarily large number of entries and its definitions are concise and easy to understand. The only shortcoming is that there are few example sentences, but this is a necessary tradeoff to keep the size under control. For sheer richness of information it doesn't compare to the New Shorter OED, for example, but then again you can't toss the NSOED into your backpack and take it to school with you. This book is light and compact. But the thing that really sets this dictionary apart is the CD-ROM. You can search for words using up to 15 different operations, including "rhymes with," "is a cryptogram of," "homophones are," "etymology includes," etc. You can use AND and OR operators to combine the various operations. These search functions are a tremendous asset to anybody who works with words, particularly writers, poets, and songwriters. And did I mention that you get a free one-year subscription to their online dictionary with your purchase? This package is a tremendous value for the money and really belongs in every home and office. And I have no doubt that Webster's 11 will continue to be the gold standard in the publishing industry for the foreseeable future. --This text refers to an edition which conatins a CD-ROM. Not all editions of this item contain a CD. Please check the item desription for further information.--
Rating:
Summary: Worth the price for the CD-ROM alone
Review: Unlike prescriptive dictionaries such as the American Heritage Dictionary, which rely on self-appointed panels of "experts" to decide what correct usage should be, descriptive dictionaries such as this and Merriam-Webster's Third International try to keep pace with how the language is actually used by speakers. This may explain why the Webster's Collegiate dictionaries have been the standard reference in the American publishing industry for a long time. This is easily the best dictionary of its class, period. It has an extraordinarily large number of entries and its definitions are concise and easy to understand. The only shortcoming is that there are few example sentences, but this is a necessary tradeoff to keep the size under control. For sheer richness of information it doesn't compare to the New Shorter OED, for example, but then again you can't toss the NSOED into your backpack and take it to school with you. This book is light and compact. But the thing that really sets this dictionary apart is the CD-ROM. You can search for words using up to 15 different operations, including "rhymes with," "is a cryptogram of," "homophones are," "etymology includes," etc. You can use AND and OR operators to combine the various operations. These search functions are a tremendous asset to anybody who works with words, particularly writers, poets, and songwriters. And did I mention that you get a free one-year subscription to their online dictionary with your purchase? This package is a tremendous value for the money and really belongs in every home and office. And I have no doubt that Webster's 11 will continue to be the gold standard in the publishing industry for the foreseeable future. --This text refers to an edition which conatins a CD-ROM. Not all editions of this item contain a CD. Please check the item desription for further information.--
|
