Dictionary

When I walked into my office of the new hospital building, I saw an uncluttered desk. The only thing I wish to do to my room is to keep it tidy. I make the wish like we make New Year's resolution.

To celebrate the new office, I bought a gift for myself last night. It's the seventh edition of the Oxford Advanced Learner's English-Chinese Dictionary. The last dictionary I bought has been with me for over twenty years, like a loyal golden retriever with dog-eared pages.

"Gee, why do you need to buy a dictionary in printed hard copy when we can search any word on the net?" you might ask.

My first answer is, "I don't know." I mean that. I can't say why. I simply like to go back to the printed dictionary. That's how looking up words has been for me ever since I got my first elementary learner's dictionary at the age of six. This is how it works: each time I home in on the word when I leaf through the pages, I meet other words in the neighbourhood. It's just the same for drinking coffee: you've always wanted to get your coffee at the café, but instead you meet your friends sitting around. I guess old habits like addiction to dictionary or coffee die hard.

Keeping the habit of having a good cup of coffee has always been easy, but a decent printed dictionary? That's another story – Oxford University Press, the publisher of the Oxford English Dictionary, said that they're considering not printing their next edition. Such move is, obviously, related to the free, instant online dictionary. The printed copy currently sitting on the desk of my new office was published in 2008, and it seems to be the last edition that I can buy.