Chapter one. The influence of teaching vocabularies

2.2 Paper-based vocabulary
"The idea of an edition is something fixed, but this is less applicable to the digital world and our editorial workflow, which is about constantly updating based on our latest research," she said. "We make changes all the time, week to week. Just like language, so our dictionary is a living, breathing thing, changing and developing all the time in response to usage and user needs."
From the reader's perspective, you can't put data releases side by side on a shelf. And although Pearsall said Oxford takes "snapshots" of dictionary data every year, this information — thus far — is not available to the public. Merriam-Webster's Sokolowski said that its version of its unabridged dictionary will be a "large, organic, but also not fixed, data set that will be the great American dictionary, the large American dictionary."
And so, we live in the continuous present of constant revision: Whether we will be able to access the evolving history of the dictionary, reflecting cultural changes and editorial judgments is an open question.
At the same time, online dictionaries are offering new information about how people use them. Sokolowski reports on Twitter about which words are trending on Merriam-Webster's website.
"I know what you're looking up," Sokolowski said. "We're eavesdropping effectively on the national conversation in a way that's very particular because the intersection of vocabulary and the news is one that's unpredictable. I don't know which word will be picked up. I mean, who would have guessed that the most looked-up word connected to Michael Jackson's death would be the word 'emaciated?'"
A dictionary is the work of many hands, a cooperative human project that requires scores of individuals poring over words, researching their history and writing definitions. It is a candle lit against the darkness of ignorance, a forceful statement that our language matters, and an inclusive register of how our speech has changed.
"Every new achievement has its antecedents, its foundation," said David Guralnik, a lexicographer who died in 2000, in a lecture at Cleveland's Rowfant Club in 1951. He was discussing Webster's New World Dictionary — which in its day sought to revolutionize the traditional dictionary by offering clear, precise and self-explanatory definitions "in a 20th century American style and from an American point of view." His New World Dictionary had "in its background the lexicographical labors of all those who have toiled in the bottomless, teeming ocean of English linguistics, from the forerunners of Dr. Johnson through Baltimore's own H.L. Mencken."
And one could say the same thing about every dictionary. The databases of the digital age are living off the fat of the land, the accumulated definitions written by the now dead and discarded lexicographers, the expert definition writers. The question now is will the dictionaries of the future match the high standards of the recent past and, if not, will anyone care? Will dictionary website subscriptions and licensing generate enough revenue to support the publishers who produce them?
"I think we're in a transition" said Don Stewart, senior editor of Webster's New World College Dictionary, 5th edition, "and I don't know what's going to come out of this, but what is going to take the place of the traditional printed dictionary? In what form will it be? I don't know and I don't think anyone else does either."
The practical issues of creation of the bilingual Dictionary are based on the aforementioned theoretical issues. Teaching English as a foreign language has to deal with the impact of electronic dictionaries on the process of study, and learners tend to apply them more often than printed versions. The operation on electronic equipment or access to the internet causes no difficulties for young generation of students. (Kamenskaya 2000). Is it necessary to abandon the traditional printed dictionaries, and turn to electronic ones? The answer is unequivocal: no. Each version of the dictionary has its pros and cons. Electronic dictionaries cannot replace printed dictionaries, but traditional hard copy dictionaries are no longer able to satisfy all the needs of users. The advantages and disadvantages of both types of dictionaries depend on how one combines the use of electronic and printed dictionaries in teaching/mastering English as a foreign language. Using e-dictionaries saves a lot of time, as the translation of lexemes is found within seconds; e-dictionaries are mobile, such a dictionary is always at hand and can be easily applied in a classroom; e-dictionaries do not wear out; e-dictionaries fall within the tendency of extracting information from electronic media; e-dictionaries provide pronunciation of words. Nevertheless, there are some serious objections to usage of the e-dictionaries to declare. Shifting from thinking and analyzing to mechanical typing doesn’t contribute to developing mental ability of learners. (Zelinskiy 2014). Sometimes the whole text given as a task for home reading is translated though the e-dictionary, which eventually ends up in decrease of quality of acquired knowledge. It is highly recommended to use e-dictionaries at examinations. (Grinschtain 2014) Printed versions, no matter how dear they are to our heart, they cannot keep up with the dynamic changes in the language. Language is a reflection of real life, and is supposed to reflect come new words, terms, phrases. All this vocabulary can be easily added to e-dictionaries.

9 reasons why printed dictionaries better than other types

1. When you open a dictionary to any two-page spread, you are usually looking up a word. It is usually the case, though, that your eye wanders. Words are tantalizing, and a dictionary page holds so much information that it is easy to see something else interesting on the page. Print dictionaries allow for serendipity.

2. In a print dictionary, the senses/definitions of the words are not on separate lines as in an online dictionary. In print, a word's entry is presented in a wraparound paragraph form. Finding the sense and the information you are looking for is a great way of making the brain exercise. If you are reading the entry for the pronunciation, the brain exercise extends by requiring you to either already understand the dictionary's pronunciation system or find the table for it so you are sure you understand the pronunciation symbols. The same happens for the etymology — or word history. There are a lot of symbols and abbreviations used, so you will have to familiarize yourself with them in order to completely understand the word history and be able to explain it to others at the water cooler on coffee break or over dinner that evening.
3. Another brain exercise is simply finding the word in an alphabetical book, which keeps your spelling gene working. If you are great at spelling, you are keeping your skill up. If you struggle with spelling, this exercise improves your spelling IQ.
4. Enjoy the illustrations — at this point, they are still more prevalent in print than online. Online, you are likely to be presented with a photograph of the entry word. In a print dictionary, you may see an intricate line drawing, a colorful illustration, a photograph, or even a reproduction of a painting or statue.
5. Less clutter, and no ads. No pop-ups, no malware, no cookies. No one is trying to sell you anything or trying to get you to read other features.
6. The sheer density of knowledge held in your hands, in print, is an amazing feeling. The nostalgia of a big, paper book is also comforting and uplifting.
7. In selecting the book off the shelf, you are looking at one dictionary instead of several at a time as you would on many online sites — so the metalanguage (language about language!) is consistent and possibly easier to grasp.
8. Learning new words is a great "side effect" of looking up a word in a print dictionary — because you can open to any page spread and will very likely see a word or words you don't know.
9. Another advantage to opening a print dictionary randomly or having a look around when performing a specific lookup, is seeing words you have forgotten about. Seeing a word and wondering, "Now, what does that mean?" and reading about it is an activity that almost ensures you will think about that word and probably use it again.

At a recent dinner party I brought up the subject of dictionaries, drawing a sharp and immediate response: "Dictionary?" said a friend, "Who needs a dictionary? If I need a word I just look it up on my phone." What he meant was "who needs a printed dictionary?" But, without the people who wrote those boring old books, the ready-made definitions found with such facility on machines would not exist. Whether you've bought a dictionary app or you enter a word into a search engine, you have, in fact, consulted a dictionary. All online dictionaries, such as Dictionary.com, thefreedictionary.com, or yourdictionary.com, use, in addition to open sources, licensed material from well-known, established dictionary publishers. And open or copyright-free sources include older works like the 1889 Century Dictionary or the Standard Dictionary of 1893.

Despite wide availability of definitions online, printed dictionaries continue to engender devoted readers. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the recent reversal of fortune for the fifth edition of Webster's New World College Dictionary. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt released it in August and has ordered a fourth printing. This comes after its former publisher, Wiley, nearly killed it altogether by firing almost every member of the dictionary's staff in early 2011.
"Looking up things in the dictionary is an intimate act," said Peter Sokolowski, editor at large at Merriam-Webster. After lectures, audience members nearly always approach him and, in a conspiratorial whisper, confide things like "My family thinks I'm crazy because I read the dictionary."
Yet the story of the past 10 years or more has been one of retrenchment in the reference field as publishers cut back on full-time employees, replacing them with consulting lexicographers and support staff as sales of print dictionaries and other reference works declined. Jon Goldman, an editor at Webster's New World from 1966-2011, was part of a talented crew that kept the quality high, despite the challenges of repeated ownership changes and perennially skimpy resources. Goldman cites the lack of a digital program for the dictionary's failure to make money in the final years before the HMH purchase. According to HMH Executive Editor Steve Kleinedler, his company bought Webster's New World Dictionary in 2012 to fill a gap left by an earlier decision not to continue with their own college dictionary, concentrating instead on The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language.
Among dictionary publishers only Merriam-Webster — the sole American publisher devoted exclusively to dictionaries — did not reduce their staff through layoffs. The company currently employs 30 full-time lexicographers. Between its free, advertising-supported dictionary website and smartphone application, Merriam-Webster nets about 200 million page views a month.
"That's a lot of traffic that keeps us going," says Sokolowski, a lexicographer who has worked at Merriam-Webster for more than 20 years. "Print is still alive and well, and there's no sense that print dictionaries are going to disappear. The thing is they are a much smaller part of the pie for us."
In the recent past, new editions of large dictionaries like Merriam-Webster's Unabridged were published infrequently (the second edition appeared in 1936, the third in 1961) with copyright updates or revised versions printed every five or six years. New editions of college dictionaries were usually published about every 10 years, with copyright updates appearing every year or two. A new edition of a dictionary is the product of a full revision during which every definition is reconsidered, outdated information revised or deleted and new words and new senses added. A copyright update has more modest ambitions, adding, in a college dictionary for example, roughly a few hundred new entries.
But the concept of publishing editions is disappearing, said Judy Pearsall, editorial director, Global Academic Dictionaries, at Oxford University Press. The Oxford English Dictionary uploads new words and revised entries to its website, OxfordDictionaries.com, every three months. These periodic uploads are called "releases," rather than "editions."