Review: American Heritage Dictionary vs New Oxford American Dictionary[2006?]

Oeasy

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. l6 H1 M' \6 w5 `' s8 }: WReview: American Heritage Dictionary vs New Oxford American Dictionary
5 N$ Y) B" T# t8 V' Yhttp://wordyenglish.com/musing/dict_AHD_vs_NOAD.html

It is clearly seen, that NOAD is also somewhat a learner's dictionary, using oft misleading, simplistic descriptions.

! A. `5 H0 U) W& @" d, q+ g, dReview: American Heritage Dictionary vs Merriam Webster Collegiate http://wordyenglish.com/musing/dict_review.html
The versions i'm reviewing are:

, m8 W: E) E) A" ]The American Heritage Dictionary Version 4.0 (1995) for Mac OS. (American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 3rd ed. 1992 by Houghton Mifflin Company)
Merriam-Webster version 2.5. (2000) (for both PC and Mac (runs in Classic under OS X).)
Encarta Dictionary Tools as part of Microsoft Encarta Reference Library 2003. (the BEST electronic encyclopedia on computer, all things considered, period.)
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http://wordyenglish.com/words/dictionary_tools.html
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5 u5 B; G% J; D/ H0 NReview of Dictionaries

' W. l' B3 K, Z- b/ ?Here's a quick summary: i highly recommend American Heritage Dictionary. Its vocabulary size is larger than all the others online. Its definition is professional and rich. It is not dumbed-down “explanatory” style as in learner's dictionaries, nor is it terse and incomprehensible as in the abridged “Merriem-Webster collegiate”, nor is it “web samples” as in Word Net.
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The worst is the Merriem-Webster COLLEGIATE dictionary. It is a abridged dictionary and very popular due to i suppose aggressive marketing. Also, extremely bad is the dictionary bundled with every Mac OS X: New Oxford American Dictionary. It is a “learner's dictionary” and a bad one.
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) D6 y  V* m8 [6 K9 d2 e" [What's Learner's Dictionary?
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“Learner's dictionary” is a class of dictionaries that take a explanatory approach. Instead of giving a definition, it simply explains what the word means. This is great if you are a casual reader and simply want to know a word's meaning quickly, but it has several serious problems.
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$ N, L/ H* a% U. j6 Y5 HYou won't be able to understand a word unless it is used in the most common way. Because, learner's dictionary usually omits a word's less popular meanings.
- N- A' U+ ?6 }( B9 h% O& ~  a. UIt does not give you any sense at all of the word's connotation, background, etymology. If you are reading a old classic English novel (e.g. Jonathan Swift), or finely-crafted journalism such as Time Magazine articles, learner's dictionary will puzzle and mislead you.
! V  W  q* a2 D7 `7 [9 B/ oFor in-depth review of dictionaries, see:
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Review: American Heritage Dictionary vs Merriam Webster Collegiate http://wordyenglish.com/musing/dict_review.html
/ h3 w1 z, O8 FReview: American Heritage Dictionary vs New Oxford American Dictionary http://wordyenglish.com/musing/dict_AHD_vs_NOAD.html
1913 Websters Dictionary and WordNet http://wordyenglish.com/musing/dict_websters_wordnet.html
Problems of Open Source Dictionaries http://wordyenglish.com/musing/dict_open_source_probs.html
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