[bookport] Re: dictionary
- From: "Walt Smith" <walt@xxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <bookport@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 24 Dec 2004 17:43:22 -0500
Okay, thanks...guess I did misunderstand what you were saying. You might
actually be better off with a dictionary broken down into 26 individual
files. Then, when searching on a word, you would be far less likely to
encounter the word you want being used within the definition of another
word. However, I don't know of any decent dictionary that would be likely to
be free of scanning errors and, as you said, you don't want those creeping
in. I do have a very old American Heritage dictionary that I bought from
Recording for the Blind (back when it still _was_ RFB) that was produced
from the compositor's tapes, not scanned, but even that has a fair number of
problems. When a definition is correctly formatted, it's great to search
with a word processor or text editor because every definition is supposed to
look something like this:
<REF> Dalai Lama n. The traditional governmental ruler and highest
priest of the Lamaist religion in Tibet andMongolia. Tibetan :
Mongolian dalai, ocean betan bla ma, monk.
This makes it easy to search for "<REF> [your_word]" and get a hit. However,
a fair amount of the time (maybe as high as 10%, but I'm not sure), the
start of a new word's definition doesn't begin with that "<REF>" and
actually begins at the end of the prior definition. However, with that
disability, it's still the best searchable dictionary I've found.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Tiffany H. Jessen" <tjessen@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <bookport@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Friday, December 24, 2004 11:37 AM
Subject: [bookport] Re: dictionary
No, my main purpose was to get definitions of words which are used in books
I am reading. Usually I can pick up the idea of the word based on it's
usage, but this would enable me to learn the proper definition.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Walt Smith" <walt@xxxxxxxxxx>
To: <bookport@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Friday, December 24, 2004 10:23 AM
Subject: [bookport] Re: dictionary
> But I thought you said that one of the purposes for which you wanted to
use
> it was to verify spelling. If you have something spelled wrong and use
that
> spelling to look something up, you'll never find it. Perhaps I
misunderstood
> your original message.
>
> I guess my feeling is that this sort of use doesn't really fall within the
> definition of "reading" as I think of it. It just strikes me as very
> unwieldy to use this kind of device in this way.
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Tiffany H. Jessen" <tjessen@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> To: <bookport@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Sent: Friday, December 24, 2004 10:03 AM
> Subject: [bookport] Re: dictionary
>
>
> Impossible? why? Assuming you can spell the word your looking for can't
you
> just use the find command?
> Tiff
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Walt Smith" <walt@xxxxxxxxxx>
> To: <bookport@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Sent: Friday, December 24, 2004 9:21 AM
> Subject: [bookport] Re: dictionary
>
>
> > I'd think that would be almost impossible to use.
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Tiffany H. Jessen" <tjessen@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> > To: <bookport@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> > Sent: Friday, December 24, 2004 8:25 AM
> > Subject: [bookport] dictionary
> >
> >
> > Hello.
> > Typically when working on the computer, if I need to look up a word I
> either
> > do it from within what ever program I'm using, Word, Kurzweil, etc, or
if
> > I'm willing to put more time into it I may look on the net at something
> like
> > dictionary.com. What I'd like to do, is find one in one big file so I
can
> > load it into the book port. I don't need it so detailed that it'll take
up
> a
> > massive amount of space on my flashcard, but I do want it to be well
> edited
> > and not have to contend with scanning errors.
> > Ideas?
> > Thanks, and happy holidays.
> > Tiffany
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
>
>
>
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