With the third series of Little Britain just launched in the US, perplexed American viewers can turn to a dictionary of British slang to work out exactly what is being said.

The British American dictionary on BBC America`s website can also come in handy for troublesome phrases in Footballers Wives - which has proved a hit Stateside - such as “slapper” and “daft cow”.

The lexicon is one of the most popular parts of the site, regularly scoring in the top ten in terms of hits, according to BBC America spokeswoman Amy Mulcair.

“It`s a bit of fun, but it`s also genuinely there if viewers want to look up things,” she said.

“An American who`s never been to Europe might have watched a lot of British programming and there`s different vocabulary and different accents - something else to turn their ear to.”

The commercial channel transmits a range of British shows including Ramsay`s Kitchen Nightmares, Bad Girls, What Not to Wear and BBC News to 46 million homes across the States.

The dictionary, which has built up more than 2000 pieces of slang, includes contributions submitted by the public.

It covers a number of topics, from alcohol and food to illnesses and insults and differentiates between the use of language in different parts of Britain and Ireland.

It enables Americans to find out what people are talking about when they say they are “legless” or “skint”, on a “booze cruise” or when they label someone as an “anorak”.

The site also includes Irish words and phrases such as “craic”, “the black stuff” and “eejit”.

I love words. In fact, I’m a word snob and I’m not afraid to admit it. Having been a professional writer and editor for pretty much my entire life I revel in the English language. I actually like reading and collecting grammar textbooks, thesauri, encyclopedia, and dictionaries. So when I had the chance to evaluate the recently released Random House Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary from WordGenius, I jumped at the chance. It wasn’t that I was looking to score a free dictionary – I already own more dictionaries than most normal people do – it was because I just like dictionaries of any kind.

The good folks at WordGenius supplied me with a download link and in a remarkably short time I had the RHWUD downloaded, installed, and running. For the rest of the day I was blissfully neck-deep in cross references, word origins, pronunciations, and simply wandering through the 315,000 entries.

The WordGenius version (introductory price US$49.95 normal price $59.95 Windows only) of the RHWUD is based on the latest 2005 edition of the famed unabridged dictionary (2nd Edition). The WordGenius version uses the Eurofield Information Solutions eComPress electronic dictionary publishing technology which means it always remains compressed to less than 15MB.

If you follow the recommended installation steps the program will auto-launch at startup and place what they call a “Drag-on Icon” on your screen that remains on top of any application (the behavior, size, and startup options can be easily changed later if you don’t like the defaults). This drag-on icon is pretty handy if you look up words frequently. Simply highlight a word in practically any application and drag it onto the icon to automatically launch the dictionary with your word definition. Simply clicking on the icon will also launch the dictionary.

Once the dictionary viewer is launched you have a number of ways to search for words and definitions. You can search by entering a word in the ‘headword’ search box. The viewer supports the wildcards ‘?’ to represent a single unknown character and ‘*’ to represent any number of unknown characters. This is obviously a great help if you don’t know exactly how to spell a particular word (or for crossword puzzles). You can also set the viewer to perform ‘Extended Headword Searches’ so that it will find instances of words with qualifying words or prefixes. For example, with Extended Headword Search activated, searching for the word ‘wrap’ will also bring up ‘bubble wrap’ and ‘plastic wrap.’

The second way to search for words is by definition. This is probably one of the most powerful features of the WordGenius version of the dictionary. Enter any word (or combination of words using the Boolean operators ‘AND’ or ‘OR’) and the program will locate any words with your search word(s) in the definitions. This feature acts a little bit like a thesaurus (although it’s not quite as easy as a true electronic thesaurus.)

Once you have performed your search you can view the results in a number of ways. You can view headwords as a simple list without the definitions (handy when looking for a particular word within a long list of hits) or expanded, showing the full definitions for each word found. You can also toggle the view to show only the words found in your search or all the dictionary entries surrounding that word (handy if your search doesn’t give the exact word you’re looking for but you think you might be close). In this view you can scroll up and down through the entire dictionary if you wish.

Another nice feature is the ability to drag and drop any word from your results list into the headword or definition boxes to start a new search or you can select a word and press ‘Enter’ to search for that word as a headword or ‘Ctrl + N’ to search for that word in definitions. There are also forward and back functions (quite useful when you need to look up a word within a definition and then return to the original word entry) and basic copy and print functions within the program.

There is also an ‘Audio Pronunciation assistant’ function that can be activated that sounds out the phonetic pronunciation letters when you move the cursor over them. It should be noted that this function doesn’t pronounce the entire word all at once; it only speaks the individual phonemes one at a time. Unfortunately this only gives you a rough idea about how the entire word should sound since it’s not quite responsive enough to speak all the phonemes one after the other if you move the cursor quickly from beginning to end. It also has the annoying habit of speaking any phoneme on the page that you accidentally move the cursor over so I kept the function deactivated most of the time.

The help files embedded in the program are fairly brief yet comprehensive and include two mini-tutorials. (I also found a typo in the help files, which in any other program would be forgivable, but in a dictionary program it stands out like a sore thumb.)

As far as content goes, the WordGenius version of the RHWUD contains all 315,000 entries found in the print edition (although I didn’t actually count each one). Unfortunately it doesn’t include any of the illustrations or tables even though they are occasionally referenced in the text. It also lacks the extra articles that are found in the print edition such as the history of English, detailed pronunciation guides, style guides, lists of colleges and universities, etc. or even the list of editors and contributing editors that compiled the dictionary. Because of limitations in the viewer, they have also omitted a number of special symbols, special accent marks, and things like Greek letters replacing them with ‘textual compensation.’

Bottom Line
So is the WordGenius version of the Random House Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary worth it? At first I would have said maybe. Not everyone needs a full-blown unabridged dictionary, then again, the only reason for not buying an unabridged dictionary is the sheer mass of a printed edition (I have a 1930s print edition of the Webster’s Unabridged dictionary that weighs nearly 15 pounds and since then the language has grown by about 33%). But if it is electronic then size isn’t an issue anymore so why not have a dictionary with all the words rather than just most of them?

While the WordGenius version is perfectly functional and the definition search is quite handy, I’ve mentioned that it does have a few drawbacks and annoyances such as lack of illustrations, tables, certain special characters and full word pronunciations. I could live with those limitations if this was the only electronic dictionary available however, curiously enough, Random House publishes their own CD-ROM version of the same dictionary for $19.95 that also includes more than 2,400 illustrations and 120,000 recorded pronunciations. Why spend $60 for a version of the RHWUD without illustrations or pronunciations when you can get the exact same dictionary for $20 that does include them?

If 20 bucks still seems like a lot for pretty much every word in the English language you can pick up Random House’s 1999 version on CD-ROM for about $7 at www.elearnaid.com/ranhouswebun2.html. Of course, if $7 is still too steep you could just go to www.onelook.com which will link your word search to more than 900 free online dictionaries.

Electronic dictionaries have been available for about twenty years now and they all do pretty much the same thing. The WordGenius version of the RHWUD may have a few unique and handy features but I don’t think those features are worth the extra $40.

“What is wrong with you?” the unsigned letter demanded of columnist Judy Jenkins.

The anonymous grammarian had photocopied a portion of the front page of the March 14 Gleaner and, with a teal blue highlighter, circled the word “snuck” that appeared in a headline and wrote beneath it in all caps: “THIS IS NOT A WORD!”

“I’m sure you know the difference and the proofreader missed it — I hope,” the correspondent wrote in an elegant hand. “The word should be sneaked. There is no word snuck.

“Just because almost everyone uses the incorrect version of this verb doesn’t mean that some of us didn’t pay attention to grammar when we were in school,” the letter went on. “Please don’t perpetuate incorrect grammar — our society/schools are pathetic enough.”

Judy wasn’t particularly moved by the indictment. After all, it wasn’t her who used the word snuck. Headlines generally are written by the copy editor who lays out the page. Although reporters might offer suggestions, headlines cannot be completed until the page is laid out; only then is it known how much space is available for the headline, which dictates how many words — proper or improper — can be used.

While Judy offered no immediate response, I have elected to comment.

“What is wrong with you?” is a cry that should be reserved for appropriate situations, such as when Michael Jackson dangles his infant over the railing of a fourth-floor hotel balcony.

While I wince at the misspellings and grammatical faux pas (some of them my own) that decorate The Gleaner, few have warranted an arm-waving wail of “What is wrong with you?”

Especially not the use of snuck.

For starters, snuck is, indeed, a word, appearing on page 1224 of my battered American Heritage Dictionary, a recognized authority on word usage.

To be sure, American Heritage characterizes snuck as “nonstandard” (in the 1976 edition) or as a word with a “usage problem” (in the 1993 edition). But it is a word all the same.

“Snuck is an Americanism first introduced in the 19th century as a nonstandard regional variant of sneaked,” the 1993 edition explains in a usage note. “Many writers and editors have a lingering unease about the form, even though it is widely used, particularly if they recall its nonstandard origins.”

Ohhhh. Even though snuck is in its second century of use, and is in wide use at that, some word people stick up their noses because they have learned that it originated as an American regionalism — and I dare say that the region wasn’t Boston. More likely it came from the frontier — perhaps from the rural Missouri that Mark Twain knew as a boy. Or, Providence forbid, from the South.

American Heritage is so serious about usage that it years ago organized a panel of authorities. In 1993, the panel was chaired by Geoffrey Nunberg, Ph.D., chairman of the linguistics department at Stanford University. The list of panelists stretches over three and a half pages and has included academics, famous smart people (Sen. Bill Bradley, astronomer Carl Sagan, historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.) as well as noted authors and writers, including Issac Asimov, Roy Blount Jr., William F. Buckley Jr., Pat Conroy, Erica Jong, Garrison Keillor, James Michener and Eudora Welty.

American Heritage reports that a 1988 survey of its usage panel revealed that 67 percent disapproved of snuck. Which indicates that one out of three experts aren’t alarmed by it. The word police are divided, two to one, on the subject. Why, in the rarefied chambers where usage experts meet, that’s practically a raging controversy. I imagine that when the topic comes up, harsh words are exchanged, thesauruses are thrown — and ultimately, aging linguists are rolling around on the floor, gouging one another’s eyes.

But here’s the thing: Snuck is simply the better word. I don’t mean by a margin of two to one. I’m talking about a word that is 10 times better, 100 times better.

Snuck speaks to the intent and the character of one who sneaks. Ask a cat burglar how he entered the room; he wouldn’t answer, effetely, “Why, I sneaked in!” No, the scoundrel would look you squarely in the eye and tell you, flatly: “I snuck in.” It’s onomatopoeia — snuck sounds like the action it refers to.

The beauty of language is that it is organic, growing and evolving. My dictionary contains definitions of more than 200,000 words, and it’s not one of the real thick ones. Neanderthal Man didn’t pop out of his cave with a vocabulary like that; our language has taken time to develop. Snuck is one of the better refinements.

And there ain’t nothing wrong about that.

A new ‘breast cancer dictionary’ is being created to help bridge the gap between patient terminology and complicated medical language, announced The French League Against Cancer at the European Breast Cancer Conference (EBCC-5), today.

Most patients want to know as much as possible about their disease however they often feel unhappy with the information provided by their doctor. Patients frequently turn to other information sources but the medical language can be difficult to comprehend and very confusing.

To maximise patient understanding, French universities collaborated with the French League Against Cancer to build a patient oriented dictionary of terms. The idea was to create a resource that converted medical jargon into every day speech.

The researchers analysed hundreds of information resources used by patients to discover how patients wrote and talked about their cancer experience. They looked at health websites and followed breast cancer discussion forums. The terms were then analysed and the meanings defined. Similar words were then grouped together into one concept and then the concepts were structured into groups of words that had a relationship.

It was discovered that patients and doctors used very different words and expressions to talk about breast cancer. Patients used an incredible 3,000 different words and phrases to talk about their condition.

R. Messai who presented the findings said, “We really hope that doctors make use of this research and begin to use common words and phrases used by patients. By talking in a language patients understand doctors can make the breast cancer experience slightly easier.”

It is hoped that the complete French dictionary will be available next year. The French team then hope to work with the UMLS (Unified Medical Language System) in the Unites States to create the first bilingual (French and English) patient friendly terminology for breast cancer.

Brookes is not an environmentalist partial to the wood pigeon, but instead editor of the Chambers Dictionary, and is seeking to keep words from disappearing in the publisher’s next edition which is slated for release in August.

“We’ve resisted the temptation for tossing words out,” he said Monday at the London Book Fair.

Also on the save list are: jobernowl (blockhead), logodaedalus (someone skilled in the manipulative use of words), incompossible (incapable of co-existing) and supernaculum (to the last drop), the kinds of words typically omitted by one-volume dictionaries once they fall out of usage.

The Chambers Dictionary, published in Scotland, is favored by puzzlers, writers and language-lovers for its pithy approach, such as defining “eclair” as a cake long in shape but short in duration.

Brookes also sees a market for its antiquarian approach in a culture taken with yesteryear, evidenced by widespread enthusiasm for old buildings and genealogy.

“We’ve decided to provide a kind of museum of language,” Brookes said.

A program started by the late Annie Plummer back in the early 1990s is being revived. Plummer was known as the Dictionary Lady, and she handed out more than 47,000 dictionaries and thesauruses before she died in 1999.

Today, the Economic Opportunity Authority for Savannah-Chatham County announced it would start a program to make sure every four-year-old in the Head Start Program will get a free dictionary.

Plummer’s daughter Barbara Dorsey was on hand for today’s announcement and is very happy that her mother’s legacy will be carried on.

“I’m really excited at the thought that another organization, other than my mother, would do something with the children,” she said. “It’s really exciting. I’m going to be involved with it.”

The Head Start Program has 1,000 dictionaries to hand out this year. They are hoping for grants and donations to fund the program in the future.

Reported by: Ron Wallace, rwallace@wtoc.com

As Rotary member Neil Anderson passed out dictionaries to Lodi third graders Thursday, the students shouted a variety of guesses as to how many letters are in the longest English word.

“20. … 100. … 500,” they said.

Lodi Rotary on Thursday distributed 2,400 dictionaries to all the third grade students in Lodi Unified School District. The project was done at the suggestion of Rotary member Bill Huyett, LUSD superintendent.

The children in third grade classes at Borchardt Elementary gasped as Anderson told them how many letters were in the longest word: 1,909. It is a scientific term.

Then Anderson shared a long word, well-known by many of the children: supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.

“What does it mean?” a boy asked.

“It’s the word you say when you don’t know what to say,” Anderson replied.

The third-graders clapped and quietly cheered as Anderson handed out the dictionaries. He noted features other than words in “A Student’s Dictionary” such as metric conversion tables, the Constitution of the United States, the Declaration of Independence and a listing of presidents.

He asked the students what word they wanted him to look up.

“Bonjourno,” one boy said. Unfortunately, that wasn’t in the dictionary.

Anderson picked a page and asked, “Do any of you know what the word ‘generalize’ means? … To make a broad statement.

“I generalize that all of you are children,” he said.

Principal Janis Morehead was pleased with the dictionary distribution. Her school has 101 third-grade students.

“It’s wonderful,” she said. “The kids are at the point where they’re going to start writing essays. Now they have a tool.”

Contact reporter Jennifer Snyder at jennifers@lodinews.com.

Col. (Ret.) Willie Banks and his wife Eunice began the Dictionary Project in Vernon Parish Schools three years ago.

The Dictionary Project is an international program which gives every student a dictionary of their own.

The project began in 1992 when Annie Plummer of Savannah, Ga. gave 50 dictionaries to children who attended a school in her area.

Between 1992 and 1999 when Plummer died she bought and donated more than 17,000 dictionaries to school age children.

The program that she developed by donating dictionaries has grown to an international program where third grade students world wide are given dictionaries of their very own.

The goal of the Dictionary Project is to improve reading comprehension of all children, world wide. It is their goal to encourage children to use dictionaries so that they will be able to use the English language effectively.

The Dictionary Project was not the Banks’ first venture in assisting the students of Vernon Parish.

More than ten years ago they decided to adopt a third grade class at East Leesville Elementary.

Three years ago they heard about the Dictionary Project and saw it as a way that they could help every third grade student in the parish.

Since then each year every third grade student in the parish is given a new dictionary of their own.

“We think that this is a wonderful program, it is just the greatest thing,” Banks said.

Vernon Parish Superintendent Dr. Cindy Gillespie recognized the Banks’ for their devotion to the students of Vernon Parish at a recent meeting of the Vernon Parish School Board.

“This is just a wonderful program,” Gillespie said. “I think it is wonderful for the kids. They are given a new dictionary of their own that they can take home.”

I wouldn’t have thought that learning how to run an old Window ’98 program on a newer Windows XP machine would have been that well received. From the number of responses I got from readers I guess I hit a hot spot. Also, thanks to all of you who write and let me know when you like, or hate a particular column. I appreciate hearing from you!

I received a great question this week from Pam F. She uses Microsoft Word at work and adds many job-specific words to the Word dictionary. She realized that she has added many over the last few years. She wanted to know if there is a way to review the list of words in her dictionary and remove some of them that aren’t used any longer. I do this occasionally to make sure that the ones I have added are not spelled wrong … sorry to admit it, but I have made a few errors in my career.

Before I get to her answer I would like to make sure that the other MS-Word users out there know that they can add words that aren’t in Word’s default dictionary. That way you won’t have to choose “Ignore” when you spell check your commonly used words.

The easiest way to add a word to the dictionary is to simply right-click on the word you wish to add (a word not in the dictionary is the cause of the red squiggly underlines) and choose “Add to dictionary.”

The following directions are for editing the custom dictionary in Microsoft Word 2003. However, it will be identical or very similar for all of the versions since ’97.

To edit your dictionary:

Go to TOOLS | OPTIONS on the Menu bar.

Now click on the “Spelling & Grammar” Tab.

Next, click on “Custom Dictionaries” and the one that you use in the list box, which is probably named, “Custom.dic.”

Click the “Modify” button and you are there.

Type a word in the top text box that you wish to add then click the “Add” button.

To remove a word from the list, click on it and then click the “Delete” button.

When finished with everything just click OK, OK, OK.

Have fun creating your own dictionary, all you Webster wannabes.

Contact Ron Doyle at Ron@DoubleClicks.info

The most definitive reference to the English language is now instantly available to students, scholars, writers, business professionals, government workers, bloggers and word lovers with a passion for reading and writing.

WordGenius today launched the electronic edition of The Random House Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary, published for users of Microsoft Windows on CD-ROM and also available via fast download from http://www.wordgenius.com for $49.95.

Designed for use at the office, school and by the entire family, the electronic editions of the world’s best-selling hardcover and paperback dictionaries are essential tools for students and scholars, who study ancient documents one minute and surf the Web the next; for writers of poems, resumes, homework assignments, technical journals, presentations, proposals or government regulations; for journalists, whether they cover toll roads or technology; and for government and business professionals, who need to communicate clearly, whether face-to-face, fax-to-fax, or email to email.

“This is more than a complete reference library on your computer,” said Alfred Papallo, president of WordGenius, which publishes the CD-ROM and download editions under license from Random House.

“This is a powerful productivity tool for all who read and write on a PC,” said Papallo. “The language of literature, the terms in your textbooks, the arts of law and medicine, the nuances in your newspaper — they are all here, instantly available, whether or not you are connected to the Web, guaranteed to help you communicate and write more effectively, to comprehend more, and to extend your vocabulary.”

WordGenius takes the Random House Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary beyond the factual and encyclopedic features of the print edition, powering the CD-ROM and download editions with award-winning eComPress electronic publishing technology. eComPress delivers viewing options for visually-impaired users, drag and drop facilities when working with all Windows applications, and a range of tools to search both 315,000 “headwords” and all the definitions for those 315,000 entries.

Unmatched by any print or Web-based dictionary, the WordGenius edition of the Random House Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary also delivers a unique “drag-on” tool. Drag-on instantly pops on screen to display a definition after a user highlights a word in a Web page or Windows application, then drags that word to the icon that the dictionary adds to the Windows desktop. Users may resize the drag-on icon, replace it with an alternative, position it anywhere on screen, and more.

For students learning English and anyone exploring the dynamic complexities of language, WordGenius also brings to life recorded pronunciations, phoneme by phoneme, and lightning fast powerful search capabilities. For example, users may solve crosswords by doing what no print dictionary does — search any string of wildcard characters to find bizarre words like p?mmy and av???dup??s, and by Boolean operators such as &(AND) or |(OR), etc.

The more than 315,000 entries range from b2b and spam to hottie and identity theft, from WML to body piercing to Megan’s Law, from law, medicine and computers to art, history and world geography; etymologies, including dates to show when terms entered the language; important and famous people, historical events, major works of literature, music and art; names and abbreviations of academic, governmental, social and fraternal organizations; popular names; common abbreviations; and current place names that reflect recent political and geographical changes.

Students, scholars, writers, business professionals, government workers, bloggers and word lovers using Windows may securely purchase and download the dictionaries from WordGenius at www.wordgenius.com or Download.com; purchase the College edition on CD-ROM from Best Buy, J&R Electronics and Costco; or order from Amazon.com. CD-ROMs are also available from AcademicSuperstore.com, Campus Tech, CCV Software, Studica.com, and Torcomp.com. Site licenses for organizations with multiple users are available by contacting info@eis-usa.com or calling 888 234 9823.

WordGenius also publishes the electronic editions of the Random House Webster’s College Dictionary, $19.95.

The CD-ROM and download editions of both dictionaries are sold under license and developed for Random House by WordGenius, a division of Eurofield Information Solutions, www.eis-usa.com, using their proprietary award winning eComPress electronic publishing technology. eComPress technologies provide efficient permanent bit compression, unique encoding, exhaustive indexing and powerful annotation for medical journals, service manuals and large reference publications from the World Health Organization, International Monetary Fund, John Wiley, Macmillan and the International Accounting Standards Board, among others.

About Eurofield Information Solutions
Eurofield Information Solutions was established in 1992 and is an Australian Technology Company that leads the way in ELECTRONIC Publishing and Distribution Software.

Our primary business is the development of our innovative eComPress electronic publishing software that provides efficient permanent bit compression, unique encoding, exhaustive indexing and powerful annotation, along with secure on-line payment and delivery for large Electronic reference Publications. These publications may be delivered via CD ROM, email attachments or WWW downloads.

The WordGenius is a purpose built application of eComPress for Dictionaries, with the powerful Drag-on drag-n-drop interface and voice pronunciation.

For more information visit www.wordgenius.com.