I love dictionaries. Have I mentioned this before?
Been thinking about dictionaries ever since I read Ampersand Duck’s post on dictionaries. I realise that I have a preference for print dictionaries. I don’t find the supposed convenience of online dictionaries that much of a plus, mainly because the print dictionary is not dependent on electricity for it to be useable. And one can’t flick through an online dictionary…
According to LibraryThing, I have NINETY-NINE dictionaries. I think this counts as a collection.
Dictionaries by language:
Chinese 58
Malay 10
Indonesian 7
German 6
Dutch 3
English 3 (Australian Little Oxford, Shorter Oxford, Roget’s Thesaurus)
Japanese 1
Spanish 1
Hebrew 1
Plus one dictionary of 26 languages (English, French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian, German, Dutch, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Polish, Czech, Serbo-Croatian, Hungarian, Finnish, Turkish, Indonesian, Swahili, Esperanto, Russian, Greek, Arabic, Hebrew, Yiddish, Japanese)
I also have a dream dictionary, and one on biology, cultural theory, slang, loan words in English, letter writing (in Chinese) and Buddhism (in Indonesian).
The oldest dictionary in my collection is Van Goor’s klein duits woordenboek – Duits-Nederlands en Nederlands-Duits, a German-Dutch dictionary published in 1942.
The newest dictionary in my collection is a pocket Xinhua Zidian (2004), bought in Melbourne recently. As a Chinese language learner I realised my Chinese language skills were beyond basic when I found myself able to use Chinese-Chinese dictionaries (it was quite a thrill, actually!). I still use Chinese-English dictionaries, of course, when I really need to understand the finer nuances of a word’s meaning.
I don’t actually use my English dictionaries much to check spelling (I don’t use spell check much either – for some reason spelling has never been a problem for me), but I do consult them to look for synonyms and to make sure I’ve got the meaning right before I use a word. At work, if I am stuck on the spelling of a word I usually just google it. At home I always prefer to consult my dictionary – usually my battered Australian Little Oxford (1987).
I have no idea why I need fifty eight Chinese dictionaries. Many are chengyu dictionaries.
Favourite dictionary: no idea.
Most used dictionary at the moment: The New Routledge Dutch Dictionary.
Trivia: I can’t type the word dicitionary.
7 Comments
Van Goor’s klein duits woordenboek – Duits-Nederlands en Nederlands-Duits, a German-Dutch dictionary published in 1942
That’s a special year for such a dictionary. Probably many printed around that time.
MMM.. I like them too. And atlases. I have quite a few of them as well.
That’s an awful lot of dictionaries. I have two, three if you count thesauruses (thesauri? (my dictionary says both are ok)).
You might be interested in this blog: http://www.dictionaryevangelist.com/
The author is a lexicocographer. I usually read her sewing blog, but I’ve been drifting through this one for about 10 minutes now, and it’s pretty interesting…
Wow, 99 is a lot.
I have 101 dictionaries on half of one wall of my study. That leaves the other half of that wall and two other walls and four independent bookcases. And the 35 Lilliput Universal Wörterbücher in my bedroom.
I probably have over 500 dictionaries.
stevo
I have probably over 500 dictionaries.
My preferred format is spreadsheet.
stevo
Now that’s a lot of dictionaries. I haven’t added ours up, but even with all the Hindi and Sanscrit ones (BB’s passion), I think you beat us by a LONG way!
WoWter i didn’t think of the significance of that date until you mentioned it!
Penny, I have to go and see how many atlases I have! Not as many as dictionaries, but a few, I think…
Akkadis, I have no idea if thesauri count as dictionaries… thanks for that tip – I like the semi-colon t-shirts 🙂
Ampersand duck I don’t think I have any Hindi or Sanskrit dictionaries…