Dictionaries: the good, the bad and the ugly. And yours and you?

In my comment responding to Golf's post about mobile phones, "Smart phone Culture", I started writing about dictionaries, but my comment was getting a bit long, and had certainly moved away from Golf's topic, so I cut it short with a promise that I would follow up the topic of dictionaries in a separate post (Peter, 2011).

Another reason for giving dictionaries their own post is that we all use them. They are important tools, not just in using English or another second language, but in using our own native language, so it's worthwhile spending some time discussing dictionaries: which ones we use and why, there purposes, what then do, and what they cannot do.

As I said on Golf's post, I use or have used several different English dictionaries, although they are all Oxford dictionaries. for many years, my main first dictionary was the Concise Oxford English Dictionary, in various editions. This book served me very well from high school, through university, and until replaced by the magnificent Oxford English Dictionary (OED) when it became available first on CDrom and then online a few years ago. Along the way, I found the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary very useful when the Concise OED didn't have a word or didn't give enough information about a word, and at only two large volumes, it was OK to bring with me from Australia when I moved to Thailand. Its two volumes now sit looking impressive on my bookshelves, but I haven't used them for years, not since the OED itself, in the online incarnation, became my primary dictionary, pretty well removing the need for any other. My brother inherited the 20 volume book version that I used at university, and it now sits looking very impressive, and never used, on his shelves in Australia.

However, I do still regularly use another dictionary: the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary (OALD), which is the one I recommend for students at your level. Although I have the OALD in the book version, that was a waste of money - since I only refer to it when I'm in front of my computer, I only ever use the very convenient online version of the OALD. Apart from checking what sort of information students are likely to get, the OALD is actually useful for telling me what are the most common current uses of words - something I'm not always sure of. For example, last term, the word abstract(v) came up in class, and I discovered that the usual meaning with which I use that word isn't even listed in the OALD entry for the verb abstract - it is not a very common meaning - which was a bit surprising to me. (Unfortunately, my rather uncommon understanding was the correct definition for the very academic paper we were reading in AEP rw7 at the time.)

And until recently, I still used an old Concise Oxford English Dictionary, which sat on the table next to my bed as a handy paper reference when I was reading, which I like to do in bed. It was a real pain - over the last few years, I've become so used to having things online, that putting down my book, reaching for the heavy dictionary, flicking through pages, and then reading the tiny print was not a pleasant experience. The desire to be able to throw away (I actually gave it away) this last paper dictionary was a powerful reason in my recent decision to buy a Kindle reader, so now I have the Oxford Dictionary of English on hand and ready to use when I'm reading in bed, and it's a great dictionary, much more comprehensive and informative than the heavy old Concise OED it has replaced. - it's very comprehensive, even including uncommon and archaic words such as coign, (which is sensibly not in the OALD and which you should probably not learn),  and giving not only the definitions, but also etymological information about the word, and example sentences. It will never replace the Oxford English Dictionary, but I'm very happy with the Oxford Dictionary of English on my Kingle reader.

Obviously, I'm a fan of Oxford dictionaries, but there are some other very good English dictionaries available, the Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary for one, which, like the OALD, is also available online.

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And how about you?

• What dictionaries do you normally use? 
• What are their strengths and weaknesses? 
• Which do you think is the best? Why? 
• Are there any dictionaries you do not like, and that you avoid? (I haven't mentioned them, but there a couple of dictionaries that I don't like.) 

More abstractly:

• What makes a dictionary good or bad? 
• What is a dictionary useful for? What is it not useful for? What are the dangers? 
• What do dictionaries do? 
• What don't (can't) dictionaries do? Why not?
  Although L'Académie française and the deluded French Ministry of Culture have still not learnt this important truth as they do their best to kill off the French language. Thankfully, English has nothing like them to "protect" it to death. 
• and anything else your response writing leads you to. 

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References

Peter. (2011, August 5, 6:50 PM). Smart phone Culture. Class Blog - AEP at AUA. Message posted to http://peteraep.blogspot.com/2011/08/smart-phone-culture.html
(Comments cannot be edited after posting, so there is no need to add the retrieval date.)