Thursday, January 17, 2013

I Need A Good Dictionary

Only into the second assignment of the Berkley Indexing Course and I'm finding that I could really use a better English dictionary. Maybe it says something about my previous classes when I say I have a better dictionary for English to Latin and vice-versa than I do for straight out English.

Usually, I don't need a dictionary - that's what spell-check is for a lot of the time, and I can figure out words from their context pretty well. It's for the more archaic usages that I have on occasion resorted to a dictionary in the past - and then I was able to use my Dad's.

However, for this course, I think a dictionary might as well be a requirement - and considering we're indexing nursery rhymes, that's saying something. On the other hand, I'm having a great time doing it.

What started this complaint/rant about the state of my bookshelves is the word 'tuffet' as used in the rhyme Little Miss Muffet. Anyone have a good definition/description for a tuffet?

2 comments:

Anassa said...

I have a Canadian Oxford. It does basic etymology on most words and includes Canadian words, places, and people. I definitely recommend anything Oxford. I think the OED Online allows subscriptions, even. Depends on how deep you need to go.

Also, the Canadian OED defines a tuffet as 1. a low set 2. variant of tuft. :) In illustrations of that rhyme, she's usually sitting on a footstool or ottoman.

Elena said...

Thanks Anassa. That's going to help with the exercise in question.

I'm thinking along those lines myself in terms of dictionary buying.

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