Web Review #5

The Oxford English Dictionary

The definitive record of the English language !

http://www.oed.com/

The Oxford English Dictionary is widely respected as the authority on both the English lexis and of the evolution of the English language. It is an unsurpassed guide to the meaning, history, and pronunciation of over half a million English words. The OED provides word meanings in context and is suitable for all levels of learners, both ESL students and native speakers of English.

You can take a virtual tour of the on-line version at http://dictionary.oed.com/tour/step-1.html

A print copy of the Concise Oxford Dictionary has sat on my desk throughout highschool, University, adulthood and now College. It is well thumbed and as familiar as an old friend. So it is with pleasure to discover that it is now available Online.

One disappointment is that, while spoilt by a wealth of free information on-line, individuals must subscribe to the Oxford English Dictionary Online at a cost of $295. a year or $29.95 a month.

However, one can receive the OED's Word of the Day free by RSS web feed or email. To receive Word of the Day send an email to wotd@oed.com, with a message consisting of subscribe wotd-amer-1 . Leave the Subject line blank.

The site also includes information on how to cite the OED Online in essays and papers, Browser tips, and a section of Learning Resources intended for native speakers aged 11-14, 14-16, 16-18, and University level. The Learning Resources Section includes Word Stories, Links and Quizzes. Again one must be a paid subscriber to use these resources.

One can take a 37 page virtual tour of this very extensive on-line dictionary at http://dictionary.oed.com/tour/step-1.html . You can search by word (if you don't know how to spell a word add a *), and by phrase and proximity. Of course the dictionary includes parts of speech and pronunciation. Oddly, sample words presented are very obscure.

After taking the tour I must admit that I greatly prefer my old print version of the Oxford Concise English dictionary. The on-line version would be useful for libraries, schools and other institutions, particularly institutions of higher learning.

Suzan's rating: *** stars

Also recommended: http://math-www.uni-paderborn.de/HTML/Dictionaries.html .

For a Review of this website, see Dave Tyminski under: my fellow tesl professionals on the right hand side of this blog.