Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, 11th Edition with CD-ROM and Online Subscription

Customer Reviews

Still much to be desired

Being a user of Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary for about 20 years, I am disappointed with this new edition. To be more specific, I am disappointed with the free CD-ROM came with the dictionary.

Using dictionaries for me means sitting in front of a PC monitor with fingers on keyboard. When I can find the definitions of words in less than a second, why should I waste 20 to 30 seconds in turning the pages. Accordingly, my review here focuses more on the interface of the CD-ROM dictionary than on the contents itself.

In my PC, I installed Collins Cobuild ver 3.1, Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English 4th Edition, Macmillan English Dictionary, ver 1.1, Cambridge International Dictionary of English ver 1.03, The New Penguin English Dictionary 2001, The American Heritage Dictionary 2000, Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary ver 3.0, Bookshelf 98, and Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary & Thesaurus, Deluxe Audio Edition ver 2.5. On another hard disk, I had an older Oxford English Dictionary on the legacy Windows NT 4.0. I have virtually all CD-ROM dictionaries available in the world. For this reason, I would say MW11 CD-ROM still has much to be desired.

There had been the MW Deluxe Audio Edition ver 2.5 installed in my PC. When I tried to install the free CD came with MW11, I was requested to remove the ver 2.5. Unfortunately, the ver 3.0 free CD is a dumb one, which ironically expelled the deluxe edition. I later tried this on another hard disk, on which ver 2.5 could be installed after ver 3.0 had been installed. Both versions could coexist harmonically. With multi-version CD-ROM dictionaries running in my PC, I can easily learn that the wonderful features with this MW11 CD-ROM mentioned by other reviewers were just old ones in most of the others.

MW might never know how fancy and user-friendly the other CD-ROM dictionaries are, how colorful the others are, and how fast the others are running. MW might never know corpus integration is now a trend in making CD-ROM dictionaries. MW might never know audio function is now a must for CD-ROM dictionaries. The free CD-ROMs came with LDOCE, MED, and RHWUD have wonderful audio function. LDOCE and MED even contain both British and American accents.

Some other awkward designs worth mentioning here are that for continuous looking up in this CD-ROM, one has to use mouse to highlight the searching box prior to a new search, which is very annoying when you are looking up a lot of words. On Cobuild, CIDE, MED, etc, you just key in work, then press Enter. Repeating this sequence, the definitions were retrieved one after one, and the searches keep going without a single move of the mouse.

For the same word, you have to toggle between dictionary and thesaurus, followed by a click on Search button to retrieve the contents in either reference. On Bookshelf 98, and Cobuild one search can retrieve all the information in each reference.

Now you see how premature the MW11 free CD-ROM is. The unabridged Webster's Third New International Dictionary share the same interface with the collegiate edition, and has been challenged by users for years. There is no need to argue about how far MW is lagging behind its competitors. MW had better thoroughly investigate the market status and redraft its roadmap. Sidney Landau has stated in his book Dictionaries, The Art and Craft of Lexicography, 2nd Edition:

Unabridged dictionaries in print will largely become a thing of the past; if produced at all in print form, they will be limited editions for collectors and libraries. Desk dictionaries, which include the American college dictionaries, will remain attractive commodities in print, as will shorter versions, but will suffer from increased competition from electronic alternatives produced by the print publishers themselves or by others whom they license.

Great book; bad CD

This dictionary is indispensable to anyone in the book publishing industry, but I mourn the loss of the prior CD's format and functionality. I must use this reference daily as a copy editor, and because the speed of a CD search is crucial, I'm stuck with the new version.

The format/layout is way too cumbersome, and offers no viewing options other than color and text size. I was able to shrink the Web10 program into a 3x4 inch box that resided permanently on my computer screen alongside a Google window and a style sheet document window. The new program takes up half my desktop at its smallest usable size.

The entries were much clearer in the old version, as well. Syllables used to be notated with dots, which could not be mistaken for hyphens. They are now indicated by what looks like hyphens, whereas hyphens look like en dashes. When the #1 reason you're looking words up is to verify things like hyphenated spellings, this is a big deal.

I would have liked some sort of F5=clear key, too, since the extra steps needed to enter a new word are redundant and irritating. It used to be that as soon as I hit enter, the entry was already highlighted and ready for the next entry, no extra steps or keystrokes needed. And depending on how I proceeded through the first entry, only sometimes am I able to scroll down a word list; often the list just stops or duplicates the main entry. If I want to look for variations I have to hit clear or backspace out of the word, then start over again.

Also gone is the tables list. I think the tables are still there, but you have to know that and look up a word that would then offer you the table. I learned a lot from those tables in the Web10 edition simply because curiosity led me to view them from the menu.

That this is the consummate dictionary is undisputed, and for students or anyone else who's using it as an occasional lookup tool it's unbeatable. If you're using it every day, all day, however, its functionality will fight you. I was looking forward to that day that when I could officially transform rest room into restroom, baby-sitter into babysitter, and E-mail into e-mail. Now that it's arrived, I wish I could just find a list of the changes so that I could check that list exclusively, then use my Web10 CD for the rest until Web12 comes up with a design that works for the folks who use it the most.

The New Standard for American Dictionaries

This edition of the M-W's Collegiate Dictionary sets a completely new high standard for American dictionaries and in fact -- for any reference book anywhere. This dictionary is everything that a good reference book should be -- self-contained, complete, easy-to-use, extremely well printed, and perfectly consistent. The abbreviations are not overused, the definitions are clear and exhaustive. Inflected forms and alternate spellings are easy to locate and identify. The usage and synonyms notes are of an enormous value for anyone who reads or writes English, and for me it clarified many meanings and different usages (i am not a native English speaker). Another great thing is that the editors treated the etimologies with due respect, so even though this dictionary is supposed to be "abridged", it is very complete. And the quality of printing is so wonderful, that i enjoy reading this dictionary just for fun.

Although it is called "Collegiate" it is useful to any person of any age and background, not just for college students. Needless to say, it never disappoints when i'm looking for words.

To put it short -- i don't have enough words of praise for this book.