Digital Home Thoughts: Spell the Word 'Obsolete' - D I C T I O N A R Y

"With Wikipedia, Dictionary.com, and, well, the rest of the entire Internet, who needs a physical dictionary anymore? Apparently not enough people to actually make the next version of the Oxford English Dictionary go to the printers. The Oxford English Dictionary, as legendary as it is heavy, is facing a bleak future as there's not much of a market these days for a reference book that weighs 130 pounds."

The heroic dictionary is not alone in this electronic world that threatens its existence. The legendary Encyclopedia and mythical Thesaurus also face extinction. It should be no surprise that while we are still far from the paperless society, more and more of our communication and information is handled digitally. With digital information comes digital processing and the need for a hefty series of books defining each word becomes unnecessary. There still is a place for reference books in the traditional dead tree format, but as the world moves on, having something static works against it. Dictionaries (and the interfaces to them) need to be fluid and easy to access. All that is left is to find a way to encourage people to actually use spell check and to look up the definition of words.