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Signs of the Times Australia / NZ edition — lifestyle, health, relationships, culture, spirituality, people — published since 1886 |
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Signs of the Times Australia / NZ edition — lifestyle, health, relationships, culture, spirituality, people — published since 1886 |
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Sir Winston Churchill once said that his nation and America represented "two peoples separated by a common tongue." His acknowledgement that Brits and Yanks speak different kinds of English, as evidenced by one's use of a footwear term ("boot") and another's resorting to an elephant's body part ("trunk") to describe that place in a car where the luggage is usually stored.
In the global Internet age, the question arises: Where do you go to find good reference sources? How can you define terms so that your message is understood halfway around the globe? And how can you learn the facts needed to back up your arguments?
The question has its own answer: the Internet itself. There are plenty of reference sources to help you find the information you need.
If words are the building blocks of thought and expression, then properly defining those words is essential. My choices are two American English–oriented sites: www.dictionary.com and www.m-w.com. That’s because, of course, I’m based in the US, and the kind of words I use must generally conform to American standards. Many, if not most of those words will align with Antipodean usage, although there are, of course, some notable variations in spelling and usage, such as "favourite" as opposed to "favorite." The Merriam-Webster site includes an online thesaurus and recorded pronunciations of words that are defined in the dictionary. But if I were based in Australia, I’d consider spending $A9.95 a year for a personal subscription to the online version of the Macquarie Dictionary, which, as readers may know, bills itself as "Australia’s national dictionary."
An online resource that tracks British English spellings and usage, is the free Cambridge Advanced Learners dictionary. It’s also a good resource, from what I’ve seen.
Beyond a dictionary, where can you go for facts? Wikipedia is an increasingly popular site. It’s a "freely available" encyclopedia (or is that encyclopaedias?). Its creators say, "Wikipedia content can be copied, modified and redistributed so long as the new version grants the same freedoms to others and acknowledges the authors of the Wikipedia article used (a direct link back to the article satisfies our author credit requirement). Wikipedia articles therefore will remain free forever and can be used by anybody subject to certain restrictions, most of which serve to ensure that freedom."
There are 357,000 articles in Wiki-pedia, such as one about Australian_English that may or may not resonate with readers. Readers can contribute information to the encyclopedia, which is also published in other languages.
For many people, the gold standard of encyclopedias is the Britannica, which traces its roots to Edinburgh in 1768. Now, 226 years later, the encyclopedia is headquartered in Chicago, and online at www.britannica.com . It’s available for free personal use, and its content can be purchased for other purposes.
Belinda Weaver, who works at the University of Queensland, is also the author of a book Catch the Wave—find good information on the Internet fast, and has a great web site called OZ Guide. It is designed primarily for journalists, but it also offers quick links to a range of topics that students, writers, preachers and the rest of us might want or need to consult.
An American site that is similar, although oriented toward both the general user and US-related resources, is Refdesk, which links to a myriad of resources, sources and interesting places including almanacs, dictionaries and directories. Its self-description is succinct: "Since 1995, free and family friendly. Refdesk indexes and reviews quality, credible, and current information-based sites and assists readers in navigating these sites."
One word in that description—credible—is a vital word to consider when discussing what you find on the Internet. It’s important to verify what you find, especially if it sounds "too good to be true." The Urban Legends Reference Pages is an excellent place to begin your quest to make sure that what you’ve read is, in fact, true.
* Mark Kellner is a freelance writer in Rockville, Maryland, in the United States, a computer columnist for The Washington Times, and a follower of Jesus.
Extract from Signs of the Times, December 2004.
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