RE: Dictionaries...are physical ones obsolete?

["Nuckols, Kenneth M" <Kenneth -dot- Nuckols -at- mybrighthouse -dot- com>]

Jsokhol mused...

> 
> i noticed in recent threads that folks mention specific dictionaries
as
> indispensible (merriam, am. heritage, and so on...). what i wonder is,
why
> the need for physical dictionaries when dictionary.com and other
online
> resources provide that info at our fingertips? or omnidictionary, if
> you're an os x user?
> 
> then again, maybe there are valid reasons tech communicators would use
> physical dictionaries instead of online ones. just curious.
> 

To the question of your Subject line the answer is absolutely "No,"
unless you happen to be writing tech docs for the hip-hop generation.
Unless you are an absolutely perfect speller with absolutely perfect
command of all the words of "standard" English and all the specialized
terminology of whatever discipline or industry you're documenting, you
need several good physical reference books:  A good Dictionary (I'll
leave it to others to recommend specifics), a good thesaurus, and a good
dictionary of terms, phrases, and "jargon words" specific to the
industry of your employer/client(s).

Several reasons:  the most important and obvious of these is that online
dictionaries are useless when the power goes out or (more likely since
most of us write electonically) when you aren't able to connect to the
internet.

Almost equally important (and maybe moreso depending on the
needs/desires of your client) is that you want to avoid free-form
language drift in your documents.  Frankly I'm surprised and a little
disturbed at how lazy and unconcerned many TW practitioners are about
using the "proper" word and insisting on the "correct" meaning,
spelling, and usage of language. We don't need to be as jack-booted as
the French linguistic police trying to preserve the "purity" of the
language, but in our profession we should be careful to use established
and traditional meanings of words for the sake of educated native and
(especially) non-native users of our documentation (online and offline)
who expect certain words to mean certain things and be used certain
ways.

English is a living, evolving, growing language, but in our capacity as
technical writers (not the fiction, poetry, and/or libretto some may
write outside of "work") we have an obligation and responsibility to our
readers and the users of our documentation to follow established
tradition and standard usage of the language.

So by all means supplement your physical dictionaries with online
sources (the fastest way to check the spelling and meaning of words
coined to match the rapid pace of technological advancement in many
fields), but don't discard the trustworthy, reliable physical dictionary
yet.  When you go home and write the latest libretto for the next big
hip-hop opera, that's the time to leave the physical dictionary on the
shelf. 

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