16. Dictionaries in electronic form Hilary Nesi in: Cowie, A. P. (ed) The Oxford History of English Lexicography

16.6 Developing dictionary forms 
Whereas in the early days of the internet the transfer was from older print dictionaries 
to the web, nowadays publishers turn to the internet for language data to inform new 
dictionaries in book form (Ross 2003). Dictionary entries on screen are looking less 
like dictionary entries on the page; pop-up windows often resemble PDA screens, and 
lexicographers are also making use of non-static display functi
ons such as the ‘three-
dimension search’, where related dictionary entries are ‘graphically depicted in a kind 
of web of words spreading out from a central item’ (Rizo-Rodriguez 2004: 40). 
Electronic dictionaries are inclined to hybridisation, combining alphabetic and 
thematic groupings, and mixing monolingual and bilingual, lexical and encyclopaedic 
information, in the manner described by Hartmann (2005). The same or a similar 
electronic dictionary product is also often made available in two or three different 
formats: on the internet, on CD-ROM, and downloadable to memory card for use with 
a PDA. 
The most recent developments in technology have led to the use of mobile or cellular 
(cell) phones for lexicographical purposes. In 2002, for example, Enfour, a Tokyo-
based company, launched Tango Town, 
described as a ‘life style tool’ combining a 
multilingual dictionary engine with educational and cultural material for English 
speakers living in Japan. Tango Town enables cell phone users to subscribe to 
dictionary information via the internet, as in the new era predicted by de Schryver 
(2003:150), when there will be ‘widespread and generalised full access to the internet 
(and thus also to internet dictionaries) from handheld, wireless electronic devices’. 
Most recently, the cell phone has also been made to function like a reading pen. The 
first commercial cameraphone was introduced in 2000, and now 3GVision's Scanning 

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Dictionary (2006) provides a downloadable application which can scan words and 
display them on the cameraphone, with dictionary information beneath. The 
advertisers invite users to ‘float the camera over a word and get its translation. Move 
around from word to word and watch the different meanings appear on the screen’.
Most technological innovations were envisaged by metalexicographers well before 
they actually materialized on a webpage, computer disc or handheld device. Pop up 
windows were predicted by Kay in 1983, in anticipation of the iFinger software and 
other similar dictionary presentation tools, and voice-activated searches were 
predicted by Crystal in 1986, foreshadowing speech recognition facilities in the latest 
hand-held devices. Zgusta (1991) wrote of the possibility of representing actions and 
processes visually in an electronic dictionary. The 
Oxford Advanced Learner’s CD-
ROM Dictionary (2000) did just this, with video sequences to illustrate over eighty 
verbs such as flick, shrug, and sneer (de Schryver 2003: 165). Improvements to the 
audio component of electronic dictionaries have been proposed by researchers such as 
Perry (1997), and the audio presentation of headwords and even usage examples has 
now spread from handheld dictionaries to CD-ROMs to web-based dictionaries. 
Landau (2001) hoped for speech translation, and it is now a feature of several 
handheld dictionary models such as those in Ectaco’s Talking Translator series. 
Similarly, innovative access routes to dictionary information were envisaged and 
discussed long before they became available. The thematic organization of lexical 
data (standard practice in paper-based thesauruses and lexicons) was strongly 
advocated by McArthur in 1986, before the electronic format enabled complex 
searches for groups of words containing the same phonological, syntactic or semantic 
features. In 1989, at a time when the options offered by the OED on CD-ROM were 
still limited to searching independent entry fields, Dodd anticipated a range of 

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electronic dictionary search routes, many of which are now in widespread use. Dodd 
anticipated the use of sound effects to clarify the meaning of onomatopoeic words, an 
idea realized in 2003 by both the Macmillan Essential Dictionary and LDOCE on 
CD-
ROM. He also imagined future dictionary users as ‘clients’, selecting 
lexicographical information via an online database, as is happening with the 
introduction of services such as Tango Town.
Electronic dictionaries continue to offer opportunities for both lexicographical and 
technological innovation. As we have seen, lexicographical ideas can sometimes be 
constrained by the limitations of the technology, while the technology can also forge 
ahead with scant regard for lexicographical content. However, even if the two fields 
have not proceeded perfectly in tandem, much ground has been covered in thirty 
years, with an ever-increasing pace of change.