choosing a dictionary >> by dan everman >> *spark-online issue sixteen

Recently, a fellow technical writer emailed me with the question, "How do you choose a dictionary?" She went on to say, "I went to a bookstore during lunch to pick up a dictionary for my new office. I've never actually had to do this before. I've always received one as part of my job, been given one as a gift, or bought one because it was on sale. As I stood there in front of that huge display of dictionaries, I realized that I had no flippin' idea how to choose one!"

I at first thought hers to be an odd request. After thinking about it, though, I realized that choosing a dictionary is pretty much like choosing any other commodity, in that the choice really comes down to preference. After some thought, I decided I could not recommend a particular choice for her, but could at least give her an insight into the way I'd made mine.

My reply:

For what it's worth, at my company we use "Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary" as a corporate standard. I don't know why. I have several at home though, because different dictionaries often assign different nuances to the same word, and different content altogether in some cases. Between home and work, I have a current "Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary", an older "Random House College Dictionary", "Webster's New World Dictionary" (a little less "modern" in influence), and a couple of paper pocket dictionaries (one antique dates back to my high school days). I also have three Spanish dialectical dictionaries, as well as conversational dictionaries for French, Thai, Mandarin, Cantonese, Malay, and Tibetan. I have language references for Sanskrit and Pali, and one for formal Hindi. For good measure, I have acquired every major flavor of Christian bible with concordances (invaluable for comparing words and concepts from different translations and eras), the DSM-IV for psychiatric/psychological terms, and "The Complete Book of Hip Hop Street Slang." I also own several thesauruses -- several, because they vary even more than dictionaries in slant and content. My current collection is rounded out by two rhyming "dictionaries" and a couple of quote books.

With all that, there are still some words and usages I can't find. For an experiment, you might try to find a definition for "ruck" using the word in the context of: "His hair was rucked back." (Thanks to "The Shipping News" by Annie Proux for sending me on that particular quest.) Or, find a definition for "tump" that encompasses the usage, "The ride was going fine until a hidden rock tumped me and my wagon over." As a child growing up in the South, we tumped, and got tumped, a lot; as an adult, when I used "tump" in a short story I workshopped at Johns Hopkins, not only did no one believe I hadn't made up the word, but I couldn't find a dictionary to corroborate my claim that is was a colloquialism.

To answer the original question, though: If someone else were buying, and money were no object, I'd probably just get the complete Oxford English Dictionary on CD. That's a lot of reference material to stuff away in a laptop bag. But even with that, I'd bet I'd still have to visit my old paper collection from time to time, anyway, for just the right verbal touch.

In addition to his day job as a Technical Writer, Dan Everman is finishing a novel, writing short stories, and experimenting with poetry. His hobbies are reading, movies, motorcycles, computers, and creating existential crises for himself.