Quote:
Originally Posted by radius
I was curious why many people think a built-in dictionary is a selling feature for bookreader devices?
To me, it just represents increased cost that I wouldn't appreciate (cost to license the dictionary, cost for more memory to hold it, cost to develop the UI/indexing for it).
I read mostly Gutenberg and other free books, and I can't remember the last time I came across a word I didn't recognize. Assuming we are all avid readers (and we must be to consider paying a few hundred dollars for a book reading device) surely we have a wide enough vocabulary to require very, very few dictionary references.
The only application I see is for multi-lingual dictionaries, where one reads in a foreign or less familiar language.
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My main love is 19th century novels, and in those one comes across lots of words that are NOT in common use today, largely connected with things like dress, and "technical vocabulary" associated with horse-drawn transport, for example.
Yes, one can generally make a reasonable guess at what these words mean, but I find that it enriches the reading experience enormously to be able to look up their precise definitions.
Eg, WITHOUT looking in a dictionary, could you tell me what the difference between a "Chaise", a "Phaeton", and a "Gig" are? They are all types of horse-drawn carriages, but what precisely is the difference between them?
In "Oliver Twist", when we first meet Bill Sykes, he is wearing a "belcher". What is a "belcher" and why is it called that?
In "King Solomon's Mines", Allan Quatermain stumbles at night on a herd of "quagga". What is a "quagga"?
I couldn't answer any of these questions without a dictionary. The excellent Unabridged Chambers dictionary I use on my Gen3 told me what all these words meant at the click of a button.
If I was reading a paper book I certainly wouldn't bother to stop and look these things up - I'd just say "OK, a quagga is obviously some sort of animal" and move on. The fact it's so EASY to look up words on the Gen3, though, means that I will take the trouble to look up any word I'm unsure of, and then makes things so much better.