Date: Wed, 29 Sep 1993 23:09:44 PDT
From: Kee Nethery <kee@aol.com>
Subject: CD ROM Dictionary (S)

Survey Says:

No one had tried the OED and several commented that it was way too
expensive. The American Heritage Dictionary Professional version seems to
be the current choice (and it's not a CD ROM). Random House might put out a
CD ROM with their dictionary but not yet available.

Thanks to all that replied. Highlights follow from some of the replies.

Kee Nethery

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ABRODY@vax.clarku.edu
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I just found a telnet site that has the Webster dictionary without to much
hassle:
>Telnet chem.ucsd.edu
>login: webster 
(all small type).
This is a UNIX telnet site, so unforetunately it is case specific.  When it
asks for a word, hit question mark to get all the details about this
dictionary.  Biographic entries are sometimes out of date, as the
dictionary  still thinks Vladimir Horowitz is alive.  Happy word hunting.

BTW the AHED (American Heritage Electronic Dictionary) does still have
something these Webster dictionaries don't: WordHunter  which allows you to
do a context search of a word: type lion AND eagle you get griffin as
output.  Essentially, any word that contains key words in  your WordHunt in
the definition/etymology can be searched.  You could for  instance get a
list of every breed of dog by typing dog in WordHunter.  For $50 it
definitely is worth that special tool.


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rmoran@wiley.csusb.edu
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I've been extremely impressed with the American Heritage Dictionary III. 
There is a promotion being run currently where for $29.95 + $5.50 S&H you
can buy that dictionary plus get a "free" copy of "Correct Quotes."  If
you've not received a mailer (or the MacZone catalog) you can place an
order by calling 1-800-843-2204 "and ask for Operator 17."  

This is for the "Standard" edition which will take about 5 megs of drive
space.  It has that double-click on a word in a definition and it'll give
the definition of the new word.  It also integrates a thesaurus.  It also
does boolean searches of definitions so you can enter, for example "hat and
bishop" and get "miter."

If you have the disk space, I'd go for the 15 meg "Professional" edition
which contains all of the text in the printed version including word roots,
geographical dictionary, list of Colleges and Universities, etc.  I
received a promotion from WordStar for this version at $59 I think.  Alas,
this was after I'd already paid $49 for the upgrade from the standard
edition.  Unfortunately I've not yet seen the Professional edition
advertized in any of the magazine/catalog mail order sources.

Note that it is not a spelling checker per-se (though it does an excellent
job in coming up with a list of possibilities if you misspell a word).  You
can install in FKEY which will open the dictionary and find a highlighted
word from your current application.  Oh, it is an application and not a DA.
 Finally, it does not "speak" the word.  However, since it gives complete
diacritical analysis, I am assuming that it would be relatively trivial for
them to add plaintalk support.

I have run across recent references to a new CD-ROM version of the Random
House dictionary.  Now, if they'd just do a CD-ROM version of the American
Heritage that would add sound support and include the illustrations from
the paper edition...


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SanjK@aol.com
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I know of at least one publisher (Random House) that is including a free
CD-ROM in their new edition of the Unabridged Random House Dict. (due out
later this year), it may be worth waiting to check it out. My guess is
other book(dict) publishers will probably follow suit and there will be a
better variety of dict. available soon. I think the dict is due out in
November. I checked with WordsWorth Books (1-800-899-2202), the list is
$100, they will sell it for $85.00


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william-mccauley@uiowa.edu
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American Heritage Dictionary, Deluxe Edition. Make sure it's the deluxe,
which is only available from the publisher (Word Star International,
800-227-5609).

* It's reasonably fast.
* It includes etymologies and synonyms.
* It allows wildcards (either ? to replace one character or * to replace a
string of characters), it allows searching by definition (what definitions
include foo and bar? what definitions include foo or bar?).
* If it doesn't find the word you type, it looks for near misses.
* It has a 'browse list' which shows the words in the dictionary near the
word whose definition is on the screen.
* Both the window and the panes in the window are resizable.

It comes with an fkey: You copy a word to the clipboard in your word
processor or other application, hit the fkey, the dictionary opens and
looks up the word. I haven't used this at all (I didn't even install the
fkey). By the way, the installer asks if you want the fkey installed or
not. Nice touch.

It takes up about 14 megabytes of disk space, and I think it requires about
18 meg to install. It was on sale for about $85, but I think that's over.