Re: COMPUTER DICTIONARIES

Subject: Re: COMPUTER DICTIONARIES
From: Isaac Rabinovitch <isaacr -at- mailsnare -dot- net>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Date: Wed, 17 Dec 2003 12:52:01 -0800




Anna Langley wrote:

Dear Tech Writers:

I'd like to know which dictionaries (online or printed) you use to research
computer terms. I've been using FOLDOC and Webopedia. But I'd like to know
what the majority of you use. My task is to refer my team's writers to the
appropriate dictionaries. It is often frustrating to me when I find the same
computer term spelled differently in different dictionaries, so I'd like to
have one standard.

I'll say it again: making your language "perfect" is not a realistic or useful goal. There's no complete and official description of American English, British English, etc. (Just as well, because if there were, we'd be stuck with strange-sounding formalisms and silly rules about use of loan words.) No matter what you do, somebody is always going to disagree with your usage. The best you can achieve is consistency, clarity, and a professional style. The way you do that is to simply pick a well-respected style book (at my last job we used the Microsoft Style Guide, though personally I prefer the Chicago Manual) and dictionary (I use the American Heritage) and stick with it. There are a lot of good choices there, but it doesn't really matter which references you pick, as long as they're reasonably literate and authoritative.

Speaking of which, I have to say that most online references should *not* be consided authoritative. FOLDOC is a case in point. It's not put together by a team of researchers and language experts. It's a spare-time project by a software engineer who mostly takes entries written by volunteers, and edits them according to his own off-hand knowledge and prejudices. Which is not to say it isn't useful for obscure bits of tech and history that are not well documented elsewhere. (I myself have contributed to it.) But it's nowhere near authoritative as something edited by a serious lexicography or researcher.



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