In search of wordy wisdom

For wordsmiths and knowledge seekers the Web has always been a happy hunting ground. Here is a clutch of encyclopaedias and dictionaries to expand your horizons

Electric Library Encyclopedia
This free encyclopedia from the Electric Library has over 14000 articles from the third edition of the Concise Columbia Electronic encyclopaedia. The entries are brief, but they are cross referenced thus putting at your disposal millions of articles and pictures from this premium research service on the Net. And if that’s not enough there are links to other relevant sites and also books. The site claims to have thousands of real-life experts in its virtual world to whom you can pose queries and get instant response. Then, there is the small (500KB) utility which you can download called NetSanity SmartBar which sits on your desktop and gives you instant access to Encyclopedia.com’s knowledge database.

Merriam-Webster OnLine
The Merriam-Webster OnLine dictionary and thesaurus is regularly updated so you don’t have to wait for supplements or new editions to check out the latest words entering the language. In fact, there is a special section devoted to the newest words and meanings. Then of course, you can readily access all the old words in a trice. Other features include cool words, new words, word of the day (you can subscribe to this), a daily word game, and a section devoted to the lighter side of the language where you can enjoy fresh information and entertaining insights about the ways words have been used in different times and places. Then there is the section ‘Coined by Shakespeare‘ which is actually a book giving words and meanings first used by the bard. The book has to be bought ($14.95), but here you can read the introduction and savour some excerpts as a dozen of these words are featured every week from academe to xantippe.

Funk and Wagnalls
Here you can have free access to the complete Funk & Wagnalls unabridged 29-volume encyclopedia, which, in its electronic form is enriched with multimedia — animations, sounds, and music. The site also includes the Random House Webster’s College Dictionary with over 165,000 entries and utilities like pronunciation key, abbreviation chart, writer’s guide, signs and symbols chart, geographical facts and a lot more. The encyclopaedia itself is updated monthly so you can access world information practically online. There are separate sections devoted to animals, maps and multimedia. In the last there are galleries of photos, animations, music, speeches, sounds, flags and anthems.

Encyclopaedia Britannica - India
The Encyclopaedia Britannica was conceived and founded way back in 1768 in Edinburgh, Scotland. Though it has been online for quite a while now, recently, a special edition with a focus on India was launched. The site features a daily international news update from the editors of washingtonpost.com, and an Indian news update from the editors of The Hindu and India Today. The special India Focus section lists India’s top sites in various categories with a short write-up from the editors. Besides, you can access the full text of the encyclopaedia; read selected articles from over 70 popular magazines like Esquire, Sports Illustrated and the Economist; and browse through special features on topics of current and historical interest. The site is a veritable guide to the Web’s best sites, including as it does, more than 140,000 sites, and one can also search the text of more than 100 million Web pages to find more information.

The Oxford English Dictionary
The Oxford English Dictionary is surely the biggest daddy of all dictionaries. No other reference work covers the history of the English language from the earliest times to the present day as does the OED. So here, besides the current meanings of words, you can also trace their development through time, get a detailed etymological analysis and check out usage through the quotations culled from around the world. The second edition of this great work was published in 1989 and last month the entire publication was hoisted on to the Web. The publishers are using the online advantage to the hilt by posting regular updates. Already there are some 10,000 new entries added which were not in the 1989 edition. Plus, there is the first group of formal updates to the dictionary, a thousand entries in the range M-MAH. Further such sets will be added four times a year, until the whole dictionary has been revised, at which point — about 2010 — the Third Edition will be published in various media. But this work’s not for free. Annual subscriptions start at US$550 for personal use and go up to US$1,600 for institutions. But you can sample the kind of info you will get and the format by checking out the Word of the Day.

Microsoft Encarta
This one’s a premier product from Microsoft. It has been one of the more popular encyclopaedias doing the rounds on CD-ROMs with a new edition coming out every year with online updates available every month. Now you can access a limited version on the Net for free. What you get are 16,000 articles, multimedia resources, a dictionary and a world atlas. But if you’re willing to pay $49.95 per year you get access to the entire deluxe edition consisting of 42,000 articles! To entice you into spending your hard-earned, there is a 7-day trial for free.

Manuel Fernandes

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