Encarta Dictionary

[Dan Emory <danemory@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I thought many of you would be interested in this review of the Gatesian
invasion into lexicography:
======================================================================
Subject: Logomachy!

Oh my goodness, dear humor lovers, I never thought there'd be a
day when I could do a post with this title.  A logomachy is a battle
over words.  The event which precipitates the logomachy to which
I refer is the recent publication of the Encarta World English
Dictionary.  "An imbroglio over a dictionary?" you say my incredulous
reader.  Ah, but this one is published by Microsoft(TM).  It's even
got a picture of William H. Gates --but none of John F. Kennedy, Sr.

Now, the thing is, this dictionary has the ego of all Microsoft(TM)
products coupled with same bottom-line-driven standards of all
Microsoft(TM) products.  Frank Abate of Oxford University Press
(they do the OED) calls it "a beta version of a dictionary."

All I can say is that I put my copy on my bookshelf last night and,
this morning, found that it had pushed all the other books off.
When I tried to look up hard words in it the pages tended to
go blank and then a blue error screen appeared.  It also froze up a
couple of times and took my thesaurus with it.

According to Doreen Carvajal's article on in in yesterday's New York
Times (8/24), the Encarta dictionary says General George Gordon
Meade (GAR) was in the American Revolutionary war.  And, it gives
"nigara falwz" as the pronunciation for Niagra Falls.

Now, the big thing about the new Encarta dictionary is that it's supposed
to be a "world English" dictionary, documenting the way the language
is used all over the world.  Even in countries where it is not the first
language.  For example, the press materials for the new dictionary say
that one can use it to find out that "dinkum" means 'genuine or reliable'
"Naturally," writes Ms Carvajal, "rival publishers immediately rustled
through the pages under 'd' in Encarta, which prompted another gleeful
discovery: 'dinkum' had vanished."

There are rumors that a copy of the new Encarta was placed in front
of a portrait of James Murray* and the picture wept.

______________________
* OK, I won't make you look it up.  Murray was the first editor of
the Oxford English Dictionary.
     ====================
     | Nullius in Verba |
     ====================
Dan Emory, Dan Emory & Associates
FrameMaker/FrameMaker+SGML Document Design & Database Publishing
Voice/Fax: 949-722-8971 E-Mail: danemory@primenet.com
10044 Adams Ave. #208, Huntington Beach, CA 92646
---Subscribe to the "Free Framers" list by sending a message to
   majordomo@omsys.com with "subscribe framers" (no quotes) in the body.


** To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@omsys.com **
** with "unsubscribe framers" (no quotes) in the body.   **