Filed under: Utilities, Education
I know, I know, dictionaries are exciting. I'm sure you share my enthusiasm for the subject, right?
Okay, so now that I've got you all riveted, I can tell you that Oxford press is launching an all new dictionary website, and it actually looks great. Lots of online services try to present a "modern dictionary" in a sort of cool mash-up way (Wordnik, I'm looking at you), but the result is usually suboptimal. Just look up a word and see. In fact, here, I'll do it for you.
Here's craic, both on Wordnik and on Oxford. Since it's such an obscure word, none of the dictionaries give it an entry of its own. See what you get with Oxford versus Wordnik, though, and decide which is more useful?
My point is that, with dictionaries, having one trusted source for quality information is often better than any number of confusing mash-ups. Oxford's new site delivers; it's well laid out, and they have interesting touches of Ajax all over the place. For example, when you mouse over one sense of a word, it gets a different background color, making it easier to read.
They also have a nice contemporary usage section. It currently features an article with an interactive graph chronicling the rise of the word "tweet."
The site is in pre-launch beta now, so it's free. They want to charge for it in the future. I think that's fine (people should get paid for their work, obviously), but I hope they don't do something dumb like block it all behind a pay wall.
OxfordDictionaries.com is one of the best dictionary sites you'll ever use originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 05 May 2010 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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