Quote:
Originally Posted by tomsem
I take it you use Vocabulary Builder, but you want to be able to see definition without highlighting them (because that adds them to VB list)? [...]
|
Thanks for the response! But, I don't think you've understood what I want; I'll try to explain.
- While reading a book, if you encounter a word you don't know the meaning of, you can look it up using the dictionary function.
- But, what if you have a word in your head that you want to look up, but the word is not on the page you are reading? If you are using a Kobo, you can just select the "open dictionary" option from the menu, and look up the word. On Kindle, this option is also available, but only if you have already looked up a word that is on the page. If you have not looked up a word in the dictionary, the '3 dot' menu is greyed out. This means that you are forced to look up a random word, which results in a build-up of random useless words in your Vocabulary Builder.
This may sound like an unlikely scenario. In my case, it is not; I quite frequently have to use the dictionary to look up a word that is not on the page. Sometimes I am reading a scanned PDF page whose Optical Character Recognition hasn't picked up all the words correctly. Quite often I am looking up a Latin phrase that is fiddly to select, especially if it is split between two lines of text. Other times, I access the dictionary while writing an essay. So, that is why I like accessing the dictionary without looking up a word that is on the page. Now, I don't feel I should need to argue this point: the OED is a massive book, and an excellent resource. It seems pretty straightforward that it would be useful to access it directly, without first having to look up some random word.