Firmware 4.24.15676

[jackie_w]

Originally Posted by geek1011

There are 275150 headwords in the new English dictionary.

By 'headwords' I meant entries of the form <w><a name="..."/>...</w>. For simple comparison's sake I was specifically excluding all the variants/inflections.

If variants are also included I reckon there are 35000+ more entries in the new Kobo versus the Kindle OED[ed3]

[Alanon]

I took a couple of minutes to look up some random words in the new English dictionary and compare the definitions with the dictionaries I use regularly. While I don't have a current printing of the Oxford Dictionary of English (ODE) on hand, I do have the older New Oxford English Dictionary (NOED) and the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary (SOED), as well as several others, the OED among them.

Based on my limited comparison tests, this looks to be an unabridged and up-to-date ODE, of which the NOED was a direct antecedent, as I've found many duplicate definitions and formatting. This is a substantial improvement over what was available previously, and ought to be better than the version on the Kindle, if reports on Kindle's dictionary abridgement are to be believed.

When compared with more robust tomes like the SOED or Webster's 3rd, this dictionary often lacks nuanced definitions, connotations, phrases, and/or literary examples, but redeems itself by having clearer, more concise and even more precise definitions overall. I don't believe many users will look further than this dictionary, especially if they're not prone to flipping through multiple pages of definitions.

[jackie_w]

Originally Posted by rashomon

Does custom dictionary (from https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=196931) goes to ".kobo\custom-dict\"?

If it's an official Kobo-supplied dictionary it goes in .kobo\dict\

Custom dictionaries, i.e. NOT Kobo-supplied, go in .kobo\custom-dict\

ETA: The thread you linked does not point to today's new dictionaries, so don't download them from there. @JSWolf provided a correct link earlier in this thread.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by the.Mtn.Man

Kobo seems to appeal to a different sort of user who isn't afraid of doing something as trivially simple as replacing a file on their device.

What is your evidence for this? If you are basing this the people in this forum, you have your facts completely wrong. The people here are definitely not typical users.

Seriously, if you can sideload a book onto your Kobo, then you can add a custom dictionary.

Considering how many people have trouble sideloading books, I think you are completely wrong with that.

[geek1011]

Originally Posted by jackie_w

By 'headwords' I meant entries of the form <w><a name="..."/>...</w>. For simple comparison's sake I was specifically excluding all the variants/inflections.

If variants are also included I reckon there are 35000+ more entries in the new Kobo versus the Kindle OED[ed3]

In that case, there are 113179 headwords, 2645 of which are multiple entries for the same headword.

[geek1011]

Originally Posted by davidfor

The people here are definitely not typical users.

And if anyone doesn't believe that, compare the people here to r/kobo. It's crazy how much misinformation there is there.

[pgilster]

Originally Posted by Uncle Robin

I'm pretty sure there will never be another dead tree OED, which is why I'm glad my library keeps their subscription up-to-date. It's why Kobo's previous abysmal dictionaries didn't bother me much, since the ne plus ultra is bookmarked in my browser. And A-Z all MUCH more accessible than having to flick through heavy books!

Absolutely right. Having the entire OED available online is a wonderful asset, though if you go through Oxford itself, the charge is steep. Just checked, though, and now see that Oxford is offering a year's access for $90, whereas not long ago it was $295. Seems to be a temporary offer. Better indeed if you can get it online through your library.

Anyway, still delighted to have the ODE on my two Kobos. What a treat!

[Uncle Robin]

Originally Posted by pgilster

Anyway, still delighted to have the ODE on my two Kobos. What a treat!

Agreed! Now I''m just waiting for them to supply a Hindi-Urdu dictionary and a monolingual Hindi dictionary with etymologies. When they do, I'll buy a new Forma each month in perpetuity, to celebrate

[jackie_w]

Originally Posted by geek1011

In that case, there are 113179 headwords, 2645 of which are multiple entries for the same headword.

It feels like you're disagreeing with me for some reason.

110534 (= 113179-2645) unique headwords in Kobo versus 101870 unique headwords in Kindle. A difference of 8000+ (as per my original post).

[geek1011]

Originally Posted by jackie_w

It feels like you're disagreeing with me for some reason.

Not disagreeing, just providing some more information for people not familiar with the Kindle dictionaries.

[Alanon]

Originally Posted by Uncle Robin

I'm pretty sure there will never be another dead tree OED, which is why I'm glad my library keeps their subscription up-to-date. It's why Kobo's previous abysmal dictionaries didn't bother me much, since the ne plus ultra is bookmarked in my browser. And A-Z all MUCH more accessible than having to flick through heavy books!

Originally Posted by pgilster

Absolutely right. Having the entire OED available online is a wonderful asset, though if you go through Oxford itself, the charge is steep. Just checked, though, and now see that Oxford is offering a year's access for $90, whereas not long ago it was $295. Seems to be a temporary offer. Better indeed if you can get it online through your library.

Anyway, still delighted to have the ODE on my two Kobos. What a treat!

I lament the lack of a new edition in print form, and realise it will probably never happen. It might be cost prohibitive... although, not in the way people think. With printing in China being so cheap and with a genuine global market for a print OED, OUP is probably worried that a print edition would cut into their digital sales which are much more profitable overall.

I would love for Oxford to continue with some form of CD static release, non-subscription digital edition, simply because the recent corpus addenda aren't that compelling, at all. For any modern words and phrases something like the ODE, with it's contemporary corpus linguistics-based approach is a much better and practical resource, which is why Kobo's choice here is commendable.

Until the 3rd edition rewrite is complete and has had time to settle, and scholars have had time to analyse the work that's been done, the subscription model doesn't make much sense for those of us that already own the 2nd edition in any format.

[geek1011]

Ok, so it appears they crippled the old v2 dictionaries, at least the English one (they are now empty with a large file named "junk" filled with zeros). Presumably, the licensing expired for them. The file modification times show September 24 (the date of this firmware version), but I don't think these were uploaded until today.

[geek1011]

To add to what I said earlier about the changed prefix_exceptions behaviour in this version, if you try and use the current v3 dictionaries on 15672 (the previous version), they won't work properly. For example, "miaowing", which is a variant of "meowing", will show the entries for "me" on 15672 instead of "meowing" from the "me.html" file on 15676. This is because, as I said earlier, the exceptions now behave like prefix exceptions rather than word redirects.

This is not a bug, but it is relevant to people who are still on 15672.

[Uncle Robin]

Originally Posted by Alanon

With printing in China being so cheap and with a genuine global market for a print OED,

Printing may be cheap, I doubt the same could be said for shipping a 62 kilo package from China. Do you have any figures on the actual size of that "genuine global market" willing to pay for a paper OED 3?

[anacreon]

Originally Posted by Alanon

Based on my limited comparison tests, this looks to be an unabridged and up-to-date ODE, of which the NOED was a direct antecedent, as I've found many duplicate definitions and formatting. This is a substantial improvement over what was available previously, and ought to be better than the version on the Kindle, if reports on Kindle's dictionary abridgement are to be believed.

When compared with more robust tomes like the SOED or Webster's 3rd, this dictionary often lacks nuanced definitions, connotations, phrases, and/or literary examples, but redeems itself by having clearer, more concise and even more precise definitions overall. I don't believe many users will look further than this dictionary, especially if they're not prone to flipping through multiple pages of definitions.

This is why I have also the Longman dictionary on my reader, with few words, but with connotations (and thesaurus).