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Wednesday, 17 August 2005

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Books : Collins Concise English Dictionary

Rating:

- More than just a dictionary
This is a moderately hefty one-volume English dictionary, roughly comparable in size and price to the Oxford Concise Dictionary. However, it differs in an important respect because this is actually more than just a list of word meanings and pronunciations including, for example, many proper names - notably people and places. In this respect it must be highly selective to remain within a manageable single volume, so I find that it includes my present home town (High Wycombe) but omits my previous home town (Lutterworth), presumably because it falls below some population threshold. It includes a fair selection of major overseas cities - for example I found the capital of Slovenia (Ljubljana) and the second city (Maribor) but not the country's major port (Koper). On a sample of cricketers, Andrew Flintoff gets a mention but Michael Vaughan does not.

The availability of an online version provides extra value in an excellent package which is up-to-date with many new words and usages. Recommended as a good general purpose-reference for the home and study.

Rating:

- THE ultimate word reference
Perfect in every sense of the word if you'll excuse the pun... This has all the latest words, abreviations and newly added slang.

This is ideal if you need something to refer to whilst playing scrabble with a sore loser / poor English opponent that likes to challenge your words to A-Level students needing the latest concise index.

With this book you are also given the opportunity to register online to use the dictionary for word lookups on the run.

Personally though I like the whole layout of the book as it is printed in colour so that you can clearly see what your trying to reference with extreme ease. There is really not that much that other reviews nor this can state about how good a dictionary is but the overall print and bind quality is something that will last for many years to come and will provide you and your family with the usage you need for many years to come.

Rating:

- A good dictionary
It's hard to find much to say about this, and that's probably a good thing. This is a fairly large, easy to use English dictionary. It no longer contains the irritating little cartoons recent Collins efforts have contained, which is a good thing. If you want to buy a decent, comprehensive English dictionary then this is probably one of the best options to go for and is certainly presented much better than some of this publishers other editions on the market right now. But then again if there's a significant price difference between this and some other recent Collins dictionary it's not worth forking out the extra cash for this one.
It's a good dictionary, nothing more, nothing less.

Rating:

- Not Great
They may be pioneers in the field, but this dictionary certainly isn't the best available. Firstly it's very heavy so don't put it on a questionable shelf above head level unless you are into self harm. Also it's not the easiest disctionary to use. The dictionary is overly long and it's not very clear to the eye. My advice look elsewhere.

Rating:

- Collins Concise English Dictionary
I am surprised that other reviewers consider this edition is not "concise". I have found it to be a no-nonsense edition with the definitions being exactly as claimed in the foreward - "sharp".
Included are new words and phrases that have become commonplace into our everyday language,ie "Wag"!
I like the blue type which easily distiguishes entries from definitions. Although I do feel it could benefit from a thumb index.
There are the added benefits of an on-line free dictionary facility and signing up for the word of the day to widen your vocabulary.
I have another concise dictionary (2006), which is not Collins, but in future I will purchase Collins.