LIS521 Janes

Resource Set 5

Sources About Words and Their Uses

Dictionaries: College/Desk, Unabridged, Subject, Children’s, Historical, Reverse, Slang, Translation; Thesauri, Style Manuals, Quotations

Explore the following sources (and similar ones from the textbook or other sources), paying special attention to their intents, potential uses, how they are structured and searched. Use the questions that follow as guides to your thinking about how each of these might be used for those questions, and consider potential sources for each question. On this Catalyst tool, suggest the source you think might be the best, first place to begin; we’ll discuss these in class.

• Webster’s Third New International
• Random House Unabridged (2d ed)
• Oxford English 3d ed (in print, on Web), Shorter Oxford
• American Heritage 4^th ed (in print, on Web)
• Webster’s New World
• Microsoft Encarta World English (in print, on Web)
• Your Dictionary.com
• OneLook
• Dictionary of American Regional English (DARE) Web site
• (Random House) Historical Dictionary of American Slang
• The Alternative Dictionaries
• Bernstein’s Reverse
• Word Spy
• reverse dictionaries (Google search)
• Roget’s International 5^th ed
• thesaurus.com
• WordNet
• style manuals: University of Chicago, MLA, Turabian, American Psychological Association guide
• Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations in print, on Web (1919 10^th ed)
• Oxford Dictionary of Quotations and Oxford variations on Web
• Simpson’s Contemporary Quotations
• concordances: Shakespeare, Bible (Shakespeare on Web, Bible on Web)
• Anchor Bible Dictionary
• American Sign Language Browser
• Dictionary of Botanical Epithets
• symbols.com
• I, Rearrangement Servant
• rhyming
• Acronyms, Initialisms and Abbreviations Dictionary
• WWW Acronym and Abbreviation Server
• other dictionaries of interest
• a set of glosses (and text on glosses from New Catholic Encyclopedia and Wikipedia)

1. How do you pronounce “chimera”?

2. What’s the origin of the phrase “Don’t touch that dial!”?

3. What does CIC stand for?

4. Is there a word that means to be buried alive?

5. I’ve heard a Dorothy Parker quotation about eternity and a ham; can you find the definitive version?

6. Does “eh” have specific meaning in Canadian English?

7. What are “calling hours” and where would you likely find them?

8. I’ve seen a couple of stories about people who are promoting anorexia as a lifestyle—is there a word or phrase for this? I think it’s a pretty new thing.

Then, read these:

Angwin, Julia “Are Dictionaries Becoming Obsolete?” Wall Street Journal 9/7/09

Google Launches Dictionary and Translated Web Search PCWorld 12/4/09

“Dated Definitions” New York Times Magazine 8/12/09

“Third Edition of OED unlikely to appear in print format” Guardian 8/29/2010

My BFF just told me “TTYL” is in the dictionary. LMAO. Oxford University Press blog 9/16/10

“Secret vault of words rejected by the Oxford English Dictionary uncovered” Telegraph 8/4/10

Nunberg, Geoffrey, “Counting on Google Books”, Chronicle of Higher Education 12/16/10

Cohen, Patricia, “In 500 Billion Words, New Windows on Culture”, New York Times 12/16/10

Winchester, Simon, “A Verb for Our Frantic Times”, New York Times 5/29/11

Ancient world dictionary finished—after 90 years

And prepare to discuss these questions:

v What is the “dictionary” becoming? What do you think it will look like in 5 years? Will it still exist in print?

v Why is there such a fascination with words? So many sources, so many different kinds of sources…

v Why is Wikipedia so much more popular and noticed than the Wiktionary?