Dictionaries have long been revered as indispensable tools for students, teachers, writers, translators, language enthusiasts and the like. They serve as gateways to understanding the meanings, usage and nuances of words, offering a comprehensive guide to linguistic exploration. However, as we tread further into the digital age, printed dictionaries are facing challenges that redefine their relevance to contemporary society.
Translators, in particular, feel the impact of this transition profoundly. Their desks were once adorned with an array of dictionaries (monolingual and bilingual), collocation guides, technical references, thesauri and so on. Every time a new edition is released, or a translation assignment requiring knowledge in a new specialised field is received, a new round of acquisition begins. And bidding farewell to outdated volumes is always a Herculean task. While donation drives often reject dictionaries, the mere thought of discarding them feels like committing a cardinal sin.
The advent of the Internet has drastically altered the way we access and utilise language resources. Gone are the days of leafing through hefty tomes, as we can now browse their digital versions online. Definitions, illustrations, etymologies, pronunciations, grammatical forms, conjugations and related terms are merely a click or swipe away. Unlike printed dictionaries which might take years to be revised before a new edition can be published, online dictionaries are constantly updated, capturing even the latest additions to the language. For instance, the Oxford English Dictionary uploads new words to its website on a quarterly basis. These updates are referred to as “releases” rather than “editions”. In March this year, notable additions like “dramality” (a genre of television programme with the combined elements of drama and reality) and “misclick” (an unintended mouse click) were included in the online lexicon, enriching the database and showcasing the function of dictionaries as cultural repositories.
As demand for printed dictionaries declines, some publishers have ceased printing dictionaries altogether. Macmillan, for example, discontinued its monolingual range in 2013, and released the last printed edition of its popular bilingual Macmillan English-Chinese Dictionary in 2023. The iconic Oxford English Dictionary, with its long-anticipated third edition in progress for more than 40 years and only halfway completed, might no longer be available in printed form by the time the revision is done. It appears that major dictionary publishers have embraced this digital shift by increasingly prioritising their online presence over print editions.
Will we witness the last printed book of words soon? Perhaps not. Despite the appeal and convenience of digital platforms, paper dictionaries still retain the steadfast allegiance of logophiles (go to page 4 if you don’t know this word), who extol their various virtues such as absence of distractions (like pop-ups and advertisements) and tracking cookies as well as less screen time. In addition to their legitimate intellectual purposes, these bulky volumes can be used to prop open doors, make pressed flower bookmarks and rebuild civilisation in the event of an apocalypse. You can also feel the tactile joy of flipping through pages and stumbling upon serendipitous discoveries—a unique experience that electronic dictionaries, for all their speed and convenience, are yet to emulate.
The debate over printed dictionaries versus digital ones in the context of language learning brings up an interesting paradox: the major drawback of printed dictionaries is also their greatest strength. Research shows that the process of looking up a word in a paper dictionary encourages deeper engagement and promotes long-term memory retention. Electronic dictionaries, on the other hand, allow you to find a word with minimal effort, which means you are likely to forget it more easily.
While it appears that online dictionaries will become more prevalent, paper dictionaries may be able to survive with their inimitable traits, if only in specific contexts and for a smaller yet dedicated user base. The future of physical dictionaries remains uncertain, but their significance and authority go beyond their physical form. Whether in the tangible pages of a printed volume or the digital terrain of the Internet, the dictionary has the last word, guiding us through the hidden depths of the lexicon.
