Chapter 17 - Electronic Dictionaries

Summary

Digital technology has had a profound and generally beneficial effect on dictionaries and other language-reference tools. Electronic dictionaries continue to evolve and it seems likely that for people born in the current century and beyond, ‘dictionary’ may cease to have its primary denotation as a thick book filled with a list of alphabetised words and their definitions. The idea of the dictionary developed over centuries to its place of privilege in the mid-twentieth century: an authoritative book that could be found in nearly every home. In the decades since then, the idea of the dictionary has rapidly evolved to become, especially for today’s digital natives, an amorphous collection of data that lives in the cloud and that should be quickly retrievable to anyone who desires to find the definition of a word they don’t know, using whatever device they have at hand. In their efforts to become the newest, best, and most dazzling, makers of electronic dictionaries today must not lose sight of the fact that the core need of their user is a simple one than can be met with a simple solution, provided to them with what is now relatively simple technology.