Dictionary Reviews

It may not contain "all" the words on stage, but this extraordinary volume does provide a complete phonetical listing of every word and name from every Shakespeare play - words not found anywhere else, including Webster's and the Oxford English Dictionary. This book fills a long-awaited need on the bookshelves of anyone involved in theatre, linguistics, literature, education or who just happens to be a "Bardophile." The idiot-proof format gives complete pronunciation breakdowns in 2 ways, using standard phonetics (the International Phonetic Alphabet) and using a simple respelling (the authors' own system). Also included is a column listing common words to demonstrate the proper sound.

For years, actors, directors, and dramaturgs have struggled with a variety of materials for guidance on the pronunciation of Shakespeare's names, along with a multitude of other resources that helped with the pronunciation of obscure words appearing in his plays. Now Shane Ann Younts and Louis Scheeder, who work in the rehearsal studio with this text every day, have put everything - names plus unfamiliar words - into one easy-to-carry book, with phonetic pronunciations that are so easy to read that they can be instantly applied. This is a groundbreaking work for everyone involved in the rehearsal process of Shakespeare's plays. Every Shakespeare actor or student should own a copy, and no rehearsal table should lack one or three copies for easy reference during every stage of the rehearsal process! Thank-you Shane Ann and Louis, for creating a terrific tool to assist us in this day-to-day process of moving the words off the page in order to bring them to life on the stage. Bravo!!!

I couldn't have asked for a more concise and easy to use tool for all ages. The book is complete with the pronunciations for not only the innumerable amount of questionable words in Shakespeare, but it also has a summary of how language was used in each of Shakespeare's plays, as well as a complete Latin section for all of those impossible to pronounce phrases. This will prevent all the disagreements and arguments that are caused as a result of differing opinions on Shakespeare's pronunciation. It levels out the playing field of Sir William for a price that won't hurt your pockets, in a size that won't hurt your back, and a format that won't hurt your brain. Well worth the investment!

This is the book that I used in my Greek Exegesis Class at Seminary, and it is the most helpful and up-to-date book on the market. Most helpful is both the Syntax Summaries section near the back, and the index of Scripture, which is very helpful if you'd like to reference his exegetical work on individual passages of Scripture. Dan Wallace is perhaps one of the most brilliant NT grammarians alive today. There are a few annoying aspects (if you have conservative evangelical presuppositions i.e.) such as his acceptance of 'plenary' meanings among a few other minor things. These aside however, it is still the best intermediate Grammar there is, and I would enthusiastically recommend it!

The knock on Wallace has been on the number of categories he uses, and some of the examples. I think that misses the point. Read the book, and begin to extrapolate from his examples an understanding of Greek syntax. His examples are just there for illustration, and I know he would admit they are not gospel.

It is telling that Wallace was asked to serve on the committe that will produce the next revision of the standard for advanced Koine Greek grammar, Blass-DeBrunner-Funk. Get this book, and then get BDF (or AT Robertson's grammar).

This is the reference as far as exegesis is concerned.

Also, if you have a matter to be learned deeply, this book will be of great benefit.

Despite I don't agree with the author on all subjects treated, I think he has a moderate approach towards grammar and exegesis. His admirable knowledge of Greek don't lead him to be proud nor haughty.

Whatever your position, get this marvelous grammar as a day by day companion.

Although one's search begins with an alphabetized listing, the main body of this thesaurus (its original concept) is organized by category. This means that to find a synonym for e.g., "trouble", you will not simply be presented a list all the possible meanings of the word but you can choose your search depending upon the sense you are looking for. If you mean "annoyance" you will be sent one place for synonyms (nouns, verbs, adj, adv); if your meaning is more "presume upon" you will be sent somewhere else. In the case of "trouble" there are about a dozen places to go in the thesaurus depending upon the subtlety of meaning you are looking for. If you are a writer, this reference work is a sine qua non. Look no further than here for the best thesaurus in the world.

If you just need a different word that is easier to spell or say, a dictionary of synonyms will usually suffice. And that is all that an alphabetically organized thesaurus is. Their advantage is that you only have to do one lookup in the book instead of two, making them quicker and easier. A true thesaurus requires that you look the word up in an index to find a numeric index, then look up that numeric index in the body of the book to get a choice of synonyms.

But the true thesaurus will give you a better supply of answers. First, the numeric entries either preceding or following frequently are opposing concepts. That means that if you go forward or backward two entries, you may strike on a subtle change in meanings that fits your intent much better. This had happened to me several times when I couldn't quite get the right word. It was because I didn't quite have the right meaning. Second, because all of the 'answers' are printed once, there is room for more of them. In a simple example, assume 5 words are considered synonyms. For a dictionary of synonyms, that means 5 entries listing 5 words each (the entry and its four synonyms), for 25 words. A true thesaurus lists an entry number in the main body with 5 words, and 5 entries of one-word-one-number in the index. Counting each number as a word, that is 16 words. That I can add 3 more synonyms (3 words in the entry in the body, 3 word-number pairs in the index) in the same amount of space. For larger groupings of words, the difference is much more significant. So now I get 7 choices (8 less the original word) instead of 4 (5 less the original word).

Mark Twain claimed that the difference between a good word and the right word is the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning. Lightning strikes more often with a true thesaurus than a dictionary of synonyms.

If you're a writer or interested in language this book is indispensible. This 6th edition is the first thesaurus I've owned and I wonder why I waited so long to get one. The first section of the book is a catalog of words grouped together by subject with the subjects listed at the beginning of the book. The second half of the book is the index, where a word can be found alphabetically and then indexed numerically to the categories in the front. I've spent some time perusing this book and I should say that I've had no difficulty with the typeface.

This small dictionary is surely the best choice for the beginners of Latin. The explainations are easy & clear, and you can find most words you need as a beginner. I'm studying with "Oxford Latin 1" and "The Complete idiot's guide....". With both books, this dictionary worked very well. Also as its small, you can have it around you all the time, which is really important. I may need another bigger one if I study Latin more deeply, but at the moment I am VERY satisfied.

The COLLINS GEM LATIN DICTIONARY by Professor Kidd remains a treasure for students of many stripes and disciplines. Language, law, Theology, History, philosophy, literature and even contemporary journalism benefit from "conversational" access to this most living and vibrant of "dead languages". The "tiny" COLLINS opus is genuinely MAGNUS in providing authoritative access in the well-known "pocket-book" format of about 675 pp. Besides dual translation of Latin-English; English-Latin; there are grammatical review features on Noun declensions, and Verb conjugation. There is a brief but informative foreword describing Classical sources of respective entries with proper caveat concerning "modern" translations from English into Latin.

This is a wonderful book for serious students and academics who,lacking Classical scholarship,need...or would enjoy..."user friendly place" to seek dependable Latin translations and sense of proper usage.THE COLLINS LATIN GEM DICTIONARY has been recognized as authentic gem since its first publication in 1957. It set the precedent as a linguistic milestone to rival any Once-or-Future Latin tome or trot. STARE DECISIS: Let this precedent stand...

The COLLINS GEM LATIN DICTIONARY is a superb little dictionary that is superior to even other language dictionaries in the Collins Gem series. It is both a Latin - English and English - Latin dictionary, and includes several appendices on terminology of Roman cultural matters.

The Latin-English portion contains nearly all words the high school student or undergrad are likely to come across. It is followed by a brief summary of Latin grammar and verse. The grammar is sufficient only for students of the most basic level of competency in Latin, but the explanation of verse is insightful and will satisfy even higher-level students. The appendix of place-names in Latin and their equivalents in English is a godsend for students who can handle texts just fine except for place-names which are missing from many larger resources.

One caveat is that the dictionary seems a little too large if one is not going to be using the English - Latin section. High school students, and university students taking a course in Latin composition will find this section most helpful. Those whose use of a Latin dictionary is limited to deciphering problematic words in an otherwise clearly readable text will find an entire half of the dictionary to be unnecessary and may resent the larger size of what could be an ideally compact dictionary.

For beginning students of Latin, the COLLINS GEM LATIN DICTIONARY is the dictionary to get. It is not ideal for higher level study, but students with a few years of experience should have already invested in a copy of LEWIS & SHORT'S LATIN DICTIONARY.

The Collins German Dictionary, with 800,000 entries, has more words and definitions than other comparable dictionaries such as the Oxford Duden, the Langenscheidts and the Cassells (which should be avoided because it is so outdated). It also gives complete grammar explanations in the preface, and it includes a list of regular German noun endings, their genders, genitives, and plurals. There is also a handy reference of all the abbreviations, field labels, and style labels on the inside cover. It also includes the past and participial forms for all strong verbs, and it gives past subjunctives within the text. The Collins also gives declensions for pronouns such as "wer" and "jemand," and it lists proper nouns within the text. Verbs that differ from the stem of the infinitive are listed in their imperative singular form ("hilf," "sprich," etc.). The traditional orthography is given in the body of the dictionary, with a symbol indicating words that have changed on account of the spelling reform of 1996.

Its main drawback is that the binding tends to collapse with frequent use, even though it is a hardback.

While abbreviations are listed in alphabetical order in the text, their definitions are not given to you immediately. For example, if you look up "usf.," you are told that it is an abbreviation of "und so fort;" then you must look up fort to discover that "usf." means "and so forth." The Collins listing of German verbs is at the very end of the dictionary, which makes it hard to find.

Note that there are a variety of Collins dictionaries. The unabridged version has 800,000 entries, while the College Edition has 380,000 entries, and the Concise edition has 195,000 entries. Some of the smaller dictionaries have entries listed in red or in blue, which is helpful for finding words more quickly. If you are beginning to learn German, it is useful
to have a smaller dictionary to save time while looking up the
same word over and over again.

I bought this book because of all the wonderful reviews on Amazon. I had a smaller German dictationary but as I am reaching the advanced stage of German, I want an unabridged dictationary. This one is great because it has a large reference in the back of all the changes of the Rechtschreibreform. So many words are now spelled differently, and one can simply look in the back to see if a particular word is different. There's just so much information in this dictationary that it's well worth the money, and the price on Amazon.com can't be beat. This dictionary is completely bilingual and can be purchased by a German speaker wishing to use it for English as well.

For any serious German/English language learner. It's the best.

While I used to swear by Langenscheidt's dictionaries, this one tops it as far as general purpose German/English English/German dictionaries are concerned.

Featuring up-to-date vocabularies, and a wide variety of idiomatic traslations, this dictionary is very helpful in giving clear guidance as to differences in meaning and usage.

If you are a translator or interpreter, or simply interested in the intricacies of either one or both of the languages, this book belongs on your desk.

Given the weight of this hefty volume, it won't be in most people's luggage when travelling; for those occasions, I recommend to keep "Langenscheidt's Universal Dictionary - German" at hand instead.

Larousse Gastronomique is a must have for any serious cook or for anyone who would just like to know more about the food that they eat. Whether the reader is looking for information about something exotic or commonplace, it's all there. Larousse Gastronomique will provide the reader with a better understanding of the ingredients, techniques, "hows" and "whys" involved in every recipe. I highly recommend reading it from cover to cover. It will serve as an invaluable reference for any cook for many years to come.

Did you ever sit with a dictionary and just randomly thumb through the entries? That technique is perfect for making your way through Larousse. It's a spectular compendium of European food and gastronomy, from absinthe to zabaglione. The "completely revised and updated" edition also includes an impressive amount of information on African, Asian and New World culinary topics. Ingredients, techniques, specific dishes, biographical sketches and geographical regions are all covered here. There are a few well-placed color photographs and illustrations throughout the book that enhance it beautifully, as well.

Certainly the grande dame of cookbooks can't be everything to everyone but what it does do, better than anything else, is teach you the proper way to master the myriad of cooking techniques. If the book is heavy, it's because it's the foundation of every other cookbook you could own. Certianly "Joy of Cooking" is also remarkable in this respect, but if you want to rise about just being good, Larousse will teach you. Yes it is Franco-centric but deservedly, the French have a culinary legacy second to none in the world and the techniques you learn in Larousse will serve you well no matter if cooking Chinese, Italian, or even New American.

The four foundations the book synthesizes are: Technique, Tools, Ingredients, and Creativity. Ever wanted to know the essence of celery? Just how an egg does all the things that it does? Larousse will tell you. Similary, with tools, Larousse is an illumination. If Williams Sonoma ever seemed superfluous, Larousse will shock you into realizing there are advantages to owning copper pots, balanced wisks, and a bombe mould or two. Correct tools are essential to exemplary results.

Larousse is not a dead book of "ancient regime" heavy sauces (though they are included), but rather a living book, inspirational in its depth. If it can be accused of being stodgy, and it has, it's because it wants to emphasize the basics of cooking and, once that is mastered, leaves you free to go out on your own. Once the four foundations have been mastered it's up to you to excel. That's not to say there aren't complex and difficult recipes, there are; but they tend to be more traditional though make no mistake, the top chefs of France have contributed recipes to Larousse.

There are shortfalls. As noted before it does not cover the other grande cuisines of the world (namely Chinese and Italian) with anything remotely resembling a catholic perspective, but then it doesn't purport to be an all-encompassing cookbook. As a book it is dry and its emphasis on exact, rigid technique seems rather imperious. While the haughty tone may seem to be a fault, it's actually worded so as to express the exact requirement of a task in the clearest terms. When you get to the highest levels of cooking techniques there is no room for error. You're dealing with physical and chemical properties that require exact processes to succeed. Pull them off and you'll amaze yourself.

If you learn to cook using Larousse Gastronomique and follow it faithfully, there won't be a cuisine in the world you can't tackle or a cooking task you won't perform without confidence. I can't say that about any other cookbook.

Investors at all levels can use this book for both reference and educational purposes. It's comprehensive--more terms than any other of its kind--and well written. I rate this as a core holding for anyone that invests.

As a novice to the investing world a book like this is an excellent resource. The definitions are laid out in an easy to understand format. Also, there are over 5,000 definitions.

I cannot believe how thorough this dictionary is--literally all the street jargon is in here. For this price, you're doing yourself an incredible disservice by ignoring it. We all forget the lingo sometimes; the Wall Street dictionary immunitizes us against forgetting trader talk.

Benet's Reader's Encyclopedia, a favorite literary reference source for many years, has been substantially revised and updated in recent years with more emphasis on African American, Eastern, Middle Eastern, African, South American, Eastern European, and women's literature.

Benet's compilation includes biographies of authors and poets, short summaries of literary works, historical data on literary movements, and definitions of literary terms. Other entries encompass more general topics that might interest readers: historical definitions (Napoleon Bonaparte, Congress of Vienna, Vietnam War, Vikings), religious terms (trimurti - Hindu, Trinity - Christian, tripitaka - Buddhist), and art and music references (e.g., Grandma Moses, Picasso, and Mozart).

I find Benet's short essays and definitions to be well-written and quite helpful. It is an excellent reference work.

However, my personal favorite is the Merriam Webster's Encyclopedia of Literature, a joint effort of Merriam Webster and Encyclopedia of Britannica. Benet's and Merriam Webster's compilations overlap considerably, but they are not identical.

Benet's work is less complete; most notably it has fewer definitions for literary terms as well as fewer biographies of authors and poets. I find that Merriam-Webster's has many more descriptive essays on specific literary works and poems. For example, Benet's does not have an entry for The Name of the Rose, I Sing the Body Electric, Love in the Time of Cholera, For the Union Dead, or many other titles found in Merriam Webster.

Where Benet's and Merriam Webster's have the same entry (e.g., Cervantes, Charlie Chan, Kazuo Ishiguro, and Paradise Lost), they are both quite good. Merriam Webster's has some photos and drawings scattered throughout the text; Benet's does not.

I give 5 stars to Merriam Webster's and 4 stars to Benet's.

My Benet has been a constant companion for 15 years. A few days ago I reluctantly turned in my tattered old copy for the new edition. In my opinion, only Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable and the Oxford Dictionary of Aphorisms can match Benet for sheer browsing pleasure. The most impressive thing about this reference is its amazing range - the literatures of many countries, history, philosophy, language, even science and politics. There are innumerable short biographies, articles on individual literary characters and many handy plot summaries. All in a well bound paperback that can be read lying down! I also have a fatal weakness for the Oxford Companions, but if you are looking for a single volume guide to the literary world, look no further than Benet.

A handy reference work for scholars, literature students, readers and booksellers, the headings include authors, titles, literary terms, fictional protagonists, historical personages, and so forth. This is one to keep at arm's reach, right there next to the dictionary.

A quick & ready reference for unfamiliar terms encountered during literary jaunts and journeys, and a great aid for booksellers needing some accurate background information to list a literary find online! One wishes the numerous online booksellers just entering the fray would purchase a copy, and familiarize themselves just a little with the world of books and literature of which they have become purveyors! - I've seen listings that betray the seller's ignorance of the difference between Winston Churchill the British statesman (& prime minister), and Winston Churchill the American novelist! A quick check of this easy reference work would have made the difference between accuracy and diletantism!

As advertised, this book is an excellent introduction to about 300 common kanji. Walsh wrote the book with a flow that allows you to read it like a story. The characters are explained in terms of the evolution from ancient Chinese drawings to modern kanji. Walsh also gives the various pronunciations of each, as well as examples of how you will see them in context.

My primary criticism is the lack of an index or headings. Walsh will say, "the following are based on animals," where a heading would be more functional. Along with the lack of an index, the book cannot easily be used as a quick reference.

However, I highly recommend this for anyone interested in the basics of kanji. It is an excellent first step before moving on to more advanced study.

The formidable hieroglyphic writing system used by Japanese is perhaps the most intimidating challenge, among many, for native English speakers. Adopted from the ancient Chinese script in the 3rd century, the Japanese written word can seem indecipherable at first glance, like a modern Rosetta Stone. But Len Walsh actually makes sense of it in this splendid little book. He organizes each character group into categories like tools, animals, derivatives of the hand, money, and the like. He shows how the Chinese script began with approximations of basic, concrete objects in nature-- the hand, the sun, the mouth, the eye, the horse, the dog, and so on-- and then began to encompass abstract concepts via metaphors, stories, and incidents involving the concrete ones. You see how the basic characters, squared off and standardized to allow for easy writing, are incorporated as radicals into more complex ones, and how compounds are formed to represent basic concepts. And since you'll learn this history, you'll learn how to glean the meaning of a character based on its constituents. You learn, for example, how the character for "mura" ("village") came about, uniting the radicals for "tree" and "law" (the latter itself a metaphorical extension of a character for "measure"), with the village symbolizing a social structure that brought law out of the tree-lined jungle. You'll learn how the character for "name" (Japanese "na" or "mei") arose from a combination of "evening" and "mouth"-- stemming from an ancient Chinese practice of sentries demanding the names of passersby at night. Thus you not only learn the characters themselves, but gain an insight into ancient Chinese and Japanese culture.

Each character is not only drawn out and linked to a word in English; its reading (pronunciation) in Japanese is given as well. Japanese characters generally have multiple readings, which vary depending on whether the character is used as a standalone word in a sentence, or one character in a compound that represents another word (e.g. a stone being "ishi" by itself and "seki"-- as in "sekiyu," petroleum-- in compounds). The standalone reading is usually native Japanese, while the reading in compounds is quite frequently borrowed from the equivalent Chinese word-- although just as French-derived English words, derived usually from Old/Middle French, differ from modern French, the modern Chinese equivalent will often vary somewhat from the Japanese. Walsh illustrates the history of the characters based on the Shuo Wen Chie Tsu, the classic source from the 2nd Century A.D. explicating the origin of the Chinese characters. Walsh's own drawings are lucid and comprehensible, and the story of many characters' origins often quite humorous (still trying to figure out how "mono," meaning "thing," arose from the combination of a cow and an elephant). In any case, you should pick up this book even if you intend only to learn spoken Japanese. You'll acquire a feel for how the vast majority of Japanese words were assembled from simpler compounds, and you'll sense the logic of the design. A very highly recommended book.

This is a great little book.

Len Walsh really plants the love of KAnji learning.

It doesn't pretend to teach you every Kanji, or thousands of compounds. It gives a really simple and enjoyable introduction to Kanji and how they were derived.

I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in learning Kanji/Japanese.

A great book to go a stage further with is Ken Henshalls "Guide to Remembering JApanese Characters". Full of useful mnemonics and all Joyo Kanji.

Both are great - enjoy!

Wonderful reference! With more than 350,000 references, I have no problem finding the word I'm looking for. This thesaurus has words both indexed and categorized so that related words are even closer at hand. Makes serendipity more likely. I especially like the lists included throughout the book. If I look up "hero," I also get a list of famous heros in history. Bartlett's Roget's Thesaurus can make writing much more interesting and fun.

Being a library student, I found this reference tool, i.e., Bartlett's Roget's Thesaurus by Roger Donald (Editor), to be indispensable. Growing up speaking another language, i.e., Swedish, I personally find the English language to many times richer with beautiful nuances that cannot be found in any other language. For example if we are talking about a persons will as in will and behavior then on can use the following other terms, e.g., volition, conation, intention, purpose, wish, liking, desire, inclination, and disposition to name a few. Are you tired of using love as a term of endearment then fell free to use the following, affection, devotion, and endearment. Then there is physical love (sexual love), ardor that has a romantic ting to it and is rightly under romantic love. The index is extremely easy to use and it is very cleverly index with unifying themes that later subdivide into smaller entities of the topic in question.

After several days of research, during which I sought recommendations in books for writers and tested a dozen competitors, I have found Bartlett's Roget's Thesaurus the clear winner. Compared to its rivals, it is cheaper, but printed on better paper with a more legible typeface. It has a useful thumb index and a clean layout unlike the others. Its wordlists, topics, and lists are more relevant.

Best of all, it's more intuitive than the others--not only in the process of looking up a word, but in the list of words found. And at the end of most wordlists are references to related concepts that increase the smart, intuitive feel to the book, a feature lacking in the competition. I consistently found the right word and/or wordlist more easily with Roget's Bartlett's than with Roget's International 6th.

The crucial step to finding the right word is when looking in the index. Fortunately, Bartlett's lists every single word in the index, whereas Roget's International 6th does not. Not finding a word in a thesaurus index is disconcerting, and substituting that word for a simpler, indexed one doesn't always lead in the right direction. Also, instead of distinguishing between nouns and verbs in the index, as Roget's International 6th does with hard-to-read type, Bartlett's streamlines the search by using descriptive phrases that distinguish, for example, "pedal" the part of a keyboard instrument from "pedal" meaning propel. This helps to pinpoint the right wordlist.

Despite its unwieldy name, Bartlett's Roget's does not exactly combine both reference tools. There is only about one quotation from Bartlett's every two pages, making the quotations more of a decorative distraction than a useful reference. But I see nothing wrong with the innocuous added bonus in a thesaurus that easily beats the others.