There is no question that digitization in dictionaries describes the future, but the question I have is this: Though electronic storage allows, as we are endlessly reminded, continuous updating, what is the financial incentive of dictionary publishers to fund such updating continuously in a robust way? In print, the incentive was selling a new edition of thousands of books. So I remain a bit skeptical that the new world of electronic dictionaries will, in the end, result in better dictionaries.
Sidney Landau On Nov 6, 2012, at 11:07 AM, Gilles-Maurice de Schryver wrote:
To round off this thread, from Michael Rundell ...From: Michael Rundell [mailto:michael.rundell@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf OfMichael Rundell Sent: dinsdag 6 november 2012 16:32 To: euralex@xxxxxxxxxxxxxCc: braasch@xxxxxxxxx; Simon Krek Gmail; Gilles-Maurice de Schryver; Bullon,Stephen Subject: Macmillan's recent announcementI thought it was time I waded into this debate. Thanks to everyone who has contributed so many interesting and pertinent points. Much of what I have to say on the subject has already been said more eloquently by people like Gilles-Maurice de Schryver, Simon Krek, and Anna Braasch, and my colleagueStephen Bullon, but i'll put my two cents in anyway. I think the arguments against abandoning print fall into two main categories, practical and cultural/emotional.The practical argument is that not everyone in the world enjoys good (or even any) web connectivity. True (though becoming less true all the time).As any publisher would, Macmillan took soundings from its sales peopleworldwide to gauge future demand for print dictionaries (which of coursevaries wildly from place to place). The current, final print run takesaccount of these forecasts, and means we'll be able to satisfy that demand for some time to come. Another model (which we have already applied in a fewcases) is that a local publishing partner can produce locally-printed versions of our dictionaries under licence: an elegant and efficientapproach for which there may continue to be some demand over the next fewyears. But the process of digitization is unstoppable - surely we allbelieve that? - and we see these measures as contingencies, to respond to a transitional situation. (An aside: I seem to remember Sarah Ogilvie, in a plenary on endangered languages at Euralex 2010, mentioning that in remoteareas of Western Australia, aboriginal people took advantage of thesatellite technology installed by mining companies there, and all had mobile phones with bilingual dictionaries on them. So even thousands of miles frombig cities, digital dictionaries are by no means 'exotic'.)This doesn't mean paper dictionaries will disappear any time soon: rather that, like vinyl LPs (as we used to call them) they will be more of a niche. There are many languages in the world that haven't yet benefited from the last big lexicographic revolution - the 'corpus revolution' that began inthe 1980s - and publishers like Ilan Kernerman have provided excellentresources for what we (reluctantly) refer to as 'smaller' languages. But Macmillan produces dictionaries of English, and that most definitely is nota niche.The second argument, roughly, is that we all like delving into physical books, and printed dictionaries offer serendipitous discoveries as we idly browse them. Well, up to a point. But as Anna put it, 'most people are not lexicographers or lovers of words, for them a dictionary is just a tool'. The primary market for Macmillan's pedagogical dictionaries consists either of learners of English or people whose first language isn't English but who need to use English in their professional or academic lives (an enormous group). This cohort is predominantly young, and many are digital natives. The odds of a 19-year-old Korean undergraduate taking a paper dictionary down from a shelf in order to resolve a reference query are, like it or not, vanishingly long, and getting longer. Of course, I too appreciate the joysof browsing a dictionary, but then I am (a) in my sixties and (b) a lexicographer. Besides, as Simon noted, there are plenty of browsing opportunities inelectronic reference materials. In Macmillan's online dictionary you can (a) click on any word in a definition or example sentence and go straight to the entry for that word; (b) click on the 'T' thesaurus button at any word, phrase or word sense and have access to relevant thesaurus data; (c) scroll down the pane to the right of the entry showing 'Related definitions' (thus at the noun 'box' you could also, instantly, look up entries such as box in,inbox, box room, box someone's ears, or think outside the box).There are winners and losers, upsides and downsides, whenever things change. But do we want to be like those people who wrote angry letters to the Times when motorized transport first came to London at the beginning of the last century, asking about the future employment prospects for people who made their living by clearing the horse manure from the streets (I am not making this up). As far as Macmillan is concerned, better to embrace a future that will come anyway, than to hang grimly on to a way of doing things whose time is passing. And the advantages of digital over paper are so great, and theopportunities this medium offers are only beginning to be exploited.And by the way, how would today's exchange of views have worked if we'd allstuck to quill pens and the postal service? Michael Rundell Editor-in-Chief Macmillan Dictionaries [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] __._,_.___Reply via web post Reply to sender Reply to group Start a New Topic Messages in this topic (1)RECENT ACTIVITY: Visit Your Group For more information about the DSNA: http://www.dictionarysociety.com Post message: DSNA@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Unsubscribe: DSNA-unsubscribe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ******** REMEMBER: "REPLY" REPLIES TO THE ENTIRE LIST. ********Switch to: Text-Only, Daily Digest • Unsubscribe • Terms of Use • Send us Feedback. __,_._,___
