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CD-ROM
When I laid eyes on the $50 behemoth of a book also known as the Encarta World English Dictionary, only one word came to mind: hubris. It takes hubris to join the august bookshelf lineup of Merriam-Webster's, Random House, and the king of kings, the Oxford English Dictionary.
Creating a dictionary from scratch also takes cash - more than $8 million, in this case, for three years of painstaking lexicography by more than 320 specialists in 20 countries. Led by the unimpeachable Anne Soukhanov (whiz of The Atlantic's "Word Watch" column and once the queen bee at American Heritage's dictionary), and carried out by London's Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, the team put together 400,000 word references, 5,000 biographies, 5,000 geographical references, and thousands of special notes.
The definitions themselves are solid. I compared Encarta's entry for hubris with Merriam-Webster's and Random House's. All mention "excessive pride," but only Encarta continues with "excessive ambition ... that usually leads to the downfall of a hero in classical tragedy."
Hooray, too, for the journalistic pronunciation system. I find hyoo'briss much easier to understand than the linguist's hyü-brðs. I also adore the "Word Key: World English" - little essays on 38 dialects, from Aussie English to African-American vernacular. But there's something kooky about other special notes scattered throughout, especially the random crash courses in cultural literacy. Take the capsule on Francis Ford Coppola's Godfather movies, which concludes, "it brought new meaning to terms such as 'godfather' and 'consigliere.'" This spirit carries over into the word list. I'm all for digerati, dot, nose stud, Web site, and wannabe, but keypal? Sounds like AOL-speak.
Such slangy words make more sense in the digital version, which is a better buy than the book (and easier to upgrade, too). The CD-ROM also includes a Roget's, a book of quotations, a style and usage manual, a computer and Internet dictionary, and an almanac. In other words, good ole Microsoft bundling.
Encarta World English Dictionary: $50, CD-ROM $39.95. Microsoft: +1 (425) 882 8080, (800) 426 9400, www.microsoft.com/encarta.
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