A few Sony questions..

[HarryT]

Well, as I said, it seems not to know the word "published", which disappointed me.

[Poppaea]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Well, as I said, it seems not to know the word "published", which disappointed me.

I just checked on this. The Oxford dictionary does not find it. The HarperCollins English-German does. This means it is not the Sony who is to be blamed.

[Billi]

Originally Posted by Poppaea

I just checked on this. The Oxford dictionary does not find it. The HarperCollins English-German does. This means it is not the Sony who is to be blamed.

Poppi, it is great for us Germans to have a very good English-German dictionary on the Sony but I can't see how this is relevant here.

Do you want to suggest that a native English speaker who doesn't find a word in a monolingual English dictionary shall look it up in an English-German dictionary?

[Poppaea]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Which just goes to show that there's no such thing as a device which is best for everybody . It's great that we have a choice.

I do maintain that the Sony's dictionary isn't as good as the Kindle, when it comes to looking up basic inflections. Eg, the first word I tried to look up, when I got my 350, happened to be the word "Published", and I was disappointed that the Sony said that it wasn't found. Of course, "Publish" is in the dictionary, but it really should be able to find such a common inflection as "Published", I think.

Originally Posted by vxf

My PRS950 also displays weird dictionary behavior. Occasionally, it will just fail to find words - and I am not sure it has anything to do with 'flexing'. It just seems bugged to me. The other night, neither of the two english dictionaries would find the word 'apple' (I tapped on it by mistake and was surprised it was not there...). I rebooted and now it was there. I think there are bugs with the dictionary.

But that the kindle have a dictionary search log? I just love that feature in the SONYs, as I can go back and review the 'difficult words' I looked up. English is not my mother-tongue, so I like to keep learning...

Originally Posted by doreenjoy

I've been impressed with the Oxford English dictionary on the Sony as well. I looked up an odd flexed version of an antiquated term, and it found it no problem.

Originally Posted by delphin

I noticed that the Sony did not seem to handle suffixed forms very well, until I switched from the "New Oxford American" to the "Oxford Dictionary of English".

The first option was only so-so, but the second "Oxford Dictionary of English" is much better, and not only handles modified forms of words better, but also manages to find UK spellings, plus lots of amazingly obscure words not included in the Americanized version.

Originally Posted by HarryT

Well, as I said, it seems not to know the word "published", which disappointed me.

Originally Posted by Billi

Poppi, it is great for us Germans to have a very good English-German dictionary on the Sony but I can't see how this is relevant here.

Do you want to suggest that a native English speaker who doesn't find a word in a monolingual English dictionary shall look it up in an English-German dictionary?

No, I just said it is the dictionary that is not working properly because Harry said he does not like the dictionary of the Sony but prefers the one on his Kindle.

As someone said here it is possible it is not working properly because of a glitch, this is just not true. The Oxford simply can not find this word.

I just can't see how it is irrelevant when I say there is another one that works when others have done so before, without being asked why they do it and without being told it is irrelevant. I would appreciate it, if you tell me why you say so to me, as I have not suggested he should use it.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Poppaea

I just checked on this. The Oxford dictionary does not find it. The HarperCollins English-German does. This means it is not the Sony who is to be blamed.

Interestingly, though, the Kindle is using the SAME dictionary, and it does find it. That would rather suggest that it's the implementation of the dictionary on the Sony that's the cause, rather than the dictionary itself.

[Poppaea]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Interestingly, though, the Kindle is using the SAME dictionary, and it does find it. That would rather suggest that it's the implementation of the dictionary on the Sony that's the cause, rather than the dictionary itself.

How does this work anyway. The fact that it is able to find it with another dictionary means the Sony software is able to do so. Or does it mean the dictionaries software is able to do so.

If it were for the devices software it would not be able to do so with the German HarperCollins, it must mean the Sony does have an older version of the Oxford dictionary, musn't it?

[HarryT]

It's an interesting question. I don't know how the "work" of looking up a word is divided between the Sony's firmware and the dictionary. On the Kindle it's much more straightforward, because there's a standard Mobipocket interface for looking up words in dictionaries, and standard tools for creating dictionaries.

[Billi]

- The other posters talked about English-English dictionaries.
- Let's explain it this way: if you are looking up a German word in a German dictionary, you don't find it and you're disappointed, would it be of great comfort to you if someone comes around and says to you: But look, I don't know why you are dissatisfied, my German-Russian dictionary is able to find this word! The dictionary works perfectly!

I've only said that I can't see the relevance of your argument, I've never said that your posts are irrelevant, I appreciate them very much. If I insulted you in any way then take my apologize - it was not intended.

[Poppaea]

Originally Posted by HarryT

It's an interesting question. I don't know how the "work" of looking up a word is divided between the Sony's firmware and the dictionary. On the Kindle it's much more straightforward, because there's a standard Mobipocket interface for looking up words in dictionaries, and standard tools for creating dictionaries.

My guess is, the Oxford is older than the other and that is the reason why it does not work as good as the other.

[Poppaea]

Originally Posted by Billi

- The other posters talked about English-English dictionaries.
- Let's explain it this way: if you are looking up a German word in a German dictionary, you don't find it and you're disappointed, would it be of great comfort to you if someone comes around and says to you: But look, I don't know why you are dissatisfied, my German-Russian dictionary is able to find this word! The dictionary works perfectly!

I've only said that I can't see the relevance of your argument, I've never said that your posts are irrelevant, I appreciate them very much. If I insulted you in any way then take my apologize - it was not intended.

Don't worry Harry could and I was referring to his post. And it is for me to apologize, I was snappish once again.

[delphin]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Interestingly, though, the Kindle is using the SAME dictionary, and it does find it. That would rather suggest that it's the implementation of the dictionary on the Sony that's the cause, rather than the dictionary itself.

Look at how the entry you are seeing for the word 'published' is being presented in the Kindle.

I just did so, and it seems to be finding the root word 'publish' instead (at least that's how it looks with the New Oxford American Dictionary).

So Kindle's dictionary does NOT include the proper definition of 'published' as the PAST TENSE of 'publish' but rather shows the root word instead.

You can get precisely the same effect on the Sony when it correctly tells you it hasn't found an exact match, by simply hitting the <- backspace key a few times, which will usually delete the troublesome suffix and get you back to a root word lookup.

I suppose that it would be nice if the Sony did the "this is close as I can get" thing automatically like Kindle, but honestly, I don't find it to be that big of deal.

Now, since I have told you how to get the Sony to do what the Kindle is doing (simply a less precise 'fuzzy' lookup) with a very simple work around, perhaps you can explain how to get the Kindle to match the Sony in a few other areas related to the dictionary?

So please do explain how can I look up a word by simply tapping on it on the Kindle?

Or bring up the dictionary easily from the home screen on the Kindle?

Or how can I see a word-log list of all words that I have recently looked up on the Kindle?

Or how to switch to a French-English, Spanish-English, German-English, or their equally usefully reverse English to foreign language equivalents on the Kindle?

These are all ridiculously easy to do on the Sony, so perhaps you could give me the simple workarounds that let you do the same things on the Kindle?

The easiest one I can think of is to lift up the nearest garbage can lid, insert the Kindle, and buy a Sony, but maybe there is one that I am missing?

[Poppaea]

Originally Posted by delphin

Look at how the entry you are seeing for the word 'published' is being presented in the Kindle.

I just did so, and it seems to be finding the root word 'publish' instead (at least that's how it looks with the New Oxford American Dictionary).

So Kindle's dictionary does NOT include the proper definition of 'published' as the PAST TENSE of 'publish' but rather shows the root word instead.

You can get precisely the same effect on the Sony when it correctly tells you it hasn't found an exact match, by simply hitting the <- backspace key a few times, which will usually delete the troublesome suffix and get you back to a root word lookup.

I suppose that it would be nice if the Sony did the "this is close as I can get" thing automatically like Kindle, but honestly, I don't find it to be that big of deal.

Now, since I have told you how to get the Sony to do what the Kindle is doing (simply a less precise 'fuzzy' lookup) with a very simple work around, perhaps you can explain how to get the Kindle to match the Sony in a few other areas related to the dictionary?

So please do explain how can I look up a word by simply tapping on it on the Kindle?

Or bring up the dictionary easily from the home screen on the Kindle?

Or how can I see a word-log list of all words that I have recently looked up on the Kindle?

Or how to switch to a French-English, Spanish-English, German-English, or their equally usefully reverse English to foreign language equivalents on the Kindle?

These are all ridiculously easy to do on the Sony, so perhaps you could give me the simple workarounds that let you do the same things on the Kindle?

The easiest one I can think of is to lift up the nearest garbage can lid, insert the Kindle, and buy a Sony, but maybe there is one that I am missing?

Delphin, when one knows better than the dictionary there is no need for them to use it in the first place. And the other dictionaries show it is possible to recognize the correct word. So this means there must be something wrong with the Oxford dictionary that clearly can be done better.

[doreenjoy]

I'm just amused that someone looked up the word "published".

I've found much harder words in the dictionary, including in the American version, so I'm not all that bent out of shape about this.

[delphin]

Originally Posted by Poppaea

Delphin, when one knows better than the dictionary there is no need for them to use it in the first place. And the other dictionaries show it is possible to recognize the correct word. So this means there must be something wrong with the Oxford dictionary that clearly can be done better.

Again there are TWO separate issues here -

FIRST -

YES - the Sony should fallback to using a simple 'partial lookup' like the Kindle.

This is NOT 'rocket science' - If you can't find the FULL WORD, then you just keep dropping letters from the tail end of the word until your existing dictionary database does get a search hit. Duuuh

As I pointed out above, this will fool most folks into thinking you are handling words that you don't technically have precise definitions for.

In other words - Can' find the real definition -> "PUBLISHED" = 'past tense of publish'

so

Just drop the trailing 'ED' and display the definition for "PUBLISH"
and drop the trailing 'D' and display the definitions for "PUBLISHER"

This seems to be what the Kindle is doing.

Again, until Sony implements some kind of fuzzy logic partial lookup, if you get a failed search, you can easily simulate the less rigorous Kindle search by simply hitting the main dictionary icon (the tiny book with the letter 'A' in the upper left in the failed search box) to bring up the full dictionary and on-screen keyboard, and then backspacing over letters from the end of the word that was not found until you do get a hit on the root word.

The Sony even TELLS you this - "No entry found hit [dictionary icon] for manual search."

I agree SONY SHOULD DO THIS FOR YOU AUTOMATICALLY (as I described above) but doing it manually literally only takes about 2 or 3 seconds, so it's only a minor inconvenience.
(It does make the Sony Dictionary feature look bad though and SHOULD BE FIXED).

I think I see Poppaea's point that doing this manually requires some knowledge of the relationship between the base word and modified form, and does NOT tell you with certainty that the word PUBLISHED is even really a valid form of the base word.

Most folks looking up words while reading are just looking for a general idea of the meaning, and aren't using their reader for word processing or spell checking so even this limited 'base word' only lookup should be acceptable.

AND SECOND -

Yes it would be nice if the dictionaries had more entries for modified forms of words, but here you are basically asking for many thousands of additions to a dictionary that already handles literally hundreds of thousands of words and their associated derivatives.

This can certainly be done, just takes time and money, and if the Oxford Dictionary folks don't want to do these additions to fix things, I am sure that Websters or another dictionary source will be happy to step in and take over.