Feature

With the passage of time, the linguistic behaviour of a speech community shifts. People abandon old words and coin new ones. The pronunciation and grammar of the language may also take new form. A dictionary reflects these changes in its updated editions. A good dictionary also upgrades itself in tune with the development of technology. For example, many dictionaries nowadays contain CD with them while others have online editions. The rapid spread of computer technology worldwide has made such changes necessary.

Cambridge University Press has always been prompt in updating its dictionaries at regular intervals touching on newer words and usage. And, of course, it has not lagged behind in exploiting the computer technology. It was quite a stir when, back in 1995, it first came up with Cambridge International Dictionary of English with CD-ROM, which gave its users an additional software support. After a decade its second edition (with changed name Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary) being more up-to-date hit the market, with the CD much more user-friendly. With the new teeth, it is now aptly rivalling the most dominant Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary which is getting along with its seventh edition and other heavyweights like Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, Collins-Cobuild English Dictionary for Advanced Learners and Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary.

The new edition of Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary has incorporated many new expressions such as 'speed-dating', 'whiteboard' and 'sex up'. The novel features of the dictionary include frequency information and collocation box. Frequency information highlights the most important words to learn and the mini-collocation boxes show the frequently occurring combinations of words. The dictionary also provides guidewords and usage notes alongside easy-to-understand definitions. Guidewords may help one to find the meaning one wants fast. The usage notes (common error notes) are based on the Cambridge Learner Corpus derived from the real student mistakes from Cambridge ESOL exam papers so as to help students to avoid common mistakes. Pictures have been used where necessary.

The CD-ROM features are also significant. The CD contains a lot of interactive exercises including exam practice for IELTS, TOEFL, FCE, CAE and CPE. The interactive exercises can be printed out or done on-screen. It also supplies extra collocation information and thousands of example sentences. Its unique SMART thesaurus turns the dictionary into a thesaurus at the press of a button. Every entry has British as well as American pronunciation, and what's more, one can record his/her own pronunciation and play back. The Quickfind option gives one the facility to use it when surfing the web or reading on the computer.

Apart from word treasures, the dictionary offers some extra stuff for its users. It provides a separate list of idioms, word families, geographical names, common first names, prefixes and suffixes, irregular verbs, regular verb tenses, symbols, units of measurements and numbers used as words. As expected, it also dedicates a separate page for phonetic symbols necessary to understand pronunciation and elsewhere general instructions to use the dictionary.

The Cambridge dictionaries are universally adjudged to be highly reliable authority in language reference. The publisher has got two other dictionaries -- Cambridge Learner's Dictionary and Cambridge Essential English Dictionary, which are as useful as the Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary. Moreover, it has published some special dictionaries concentrating on particular areas of English language, such as Cambridge Phrasal Verbs Dictionary, Cambridge Idioms Dictionary, Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, Cambridge Dictionary of American English and Cambridge Dictionary of American Idioms.

A book of 1572 pages, it contains more than 50,000 entries, clearly showing polysemy and homonymy, with meaning sequences and entry subdivisions. In Bangladesh we can get the South Asian edition printed from Singapore. Friends Book Corner has recently been given exclusive distributorship for the country. The readers may expect some price reduction under the distributorship arrangement. The face value of the book for the international market is equivalent to about Tk. 1,000, but now it will be sold between Tk. 400-500 in the country. The book printed in quality paper is available in hard cover as well as paperback.

The authenticity of Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary is beyond question. Professor Ronald Carter says, “This is a superbly well-written work of reference… It is always clear and precise in its definitions, getting to the heart of word meaning.” The new updated edition is hoped to be popular with the English language learners here, students in particular. It is especially recommended for upper intermediate to advanced level students. It is full of utility. Professor Michael McCarthy says, “This dictionary makes the complicated business of finding the right word and using it in the right way an efficient and pleasurable experience.”

dr.bin@hotmail.co.uk

The first and foremost way to become a good writer is to read. Read, read and read. The more you will read, the more you will learn and the better your writing will be. Read anything and everything from cartoons to journals, from romance to horror, mystery, fantasy, or even science fiction. Every book, every page will have lessons for you. So keep reading.

Writing is another important factor. Try to write everyday. The more you will write the more proficient you will become. So, never stop writing. Practice is also very important. Always remember that practice makes a man perfect. So, do a lot of practice work to polish your innate talent. Most importantly, you must edit your work before publishing. Sometimes even brilliant pieces of writing are discarded simply because they appear amateurish, all for the sake of a little time and effort spent getting the details right by editing. Not only does badly edited work disappoint editors and agents, but it also tells them that they are dealing with a writer who is not professional.

Start editing your work. No writer enjoys having to edit his or her own work that is a nightmare for most of us but a little effort goes a long way. As the saying goes, "practice makes a man perfect". Once writers master the art of editing, they will save themselves of a lot of rejection letters and will have increased their chances of getting published. In what way should you, as a writer, go about editing your work? First, you will need to proofread and copyedit your work, which means correcting any grammatical, spelling and language mistakes. Then, you will also need to do some content editing, or critiquing. This includes proofreading as well as editing for content, clarity and making sure your manuscript flows properly and can be read easily.

If you are reluctant to edit your own work then get a very close friend or a relative to act as your personal editor. At the end what you need to know is that there is no magical formula that suddenly makes a best-selling novelist out of somebody. Writing well is a skill developed through practice, trial and error. So never give up and keep up the good work. Happy writing!