If Printed Dictionaries Are History, What'll Children Sit on to Reach the Table?
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Re: If Printed Dictionaries Are History, What'll Children Sit on to Reach the Table?
#2Ridiculously large font on my 4k monitor. I have to zoom out to about 33% to make it readable on chrome.
Re: If Printed Dictionaries Are History, What'll Children Sit on to Reach the Table?
#3I have a certain nostalgia for dictionaries as well. That is, until I actually end up having to use one nowadays. It one of these problems that modern technology has completely and utterly superseded. You can find people arguing for the superiority of analog audio or film cameras (if only for purely subjective or emotional reasons) but I wonder if you'll find many people who still go out of their ways to use a paper dictionary instead of one of the digital alternatives available. It's so much faster and convenient. You can also easily look up any slang word, archaism, proper noun etc...
I've been learning Portuguese lately and quite naturally, having grown up using dictionaries extensively, I bought a Portuguese dictionary. I end up not using it, I just look up on my smartphone instead. The main problem is not so much the lookup speed but the fact that a small pocket dictionary simply doesn't have enough words while large ones are way too bulky to use comfortably and carry around.
I suspect that for people learning languages with a more complex script (chinese comes to mind) modern technology make things a lot easier as well, I remember reading that looking up words in a Chinese dictionary could be quite complicated for a beginner.
Re: If Printed Dictionaries Are History, What'll Children Sit on to Reach the Table?
#43d Printed seat. Parametrically described in Open SCAD
Re: If Printed Dictionaries Are History, What'll Children Sit on to Reach the Table?
#5Ridiculously large font on my 4k monitor. I have to zoom out to about 33% to make it readable on chrome.
I suspect something is broken on your end, the font is large but not absurdly so on my monitor and if I zoom out to 33% it's almost unreadable.
Re: If Printed Dictionaries Are History, What'll Children Sit on to Reach the Table?
#6They won't need to reach the table because they're going to do everything using a tablet from their beds.
Re: If Printed Dictionaries Are History, What'll Children Sit on to Reach the Table?
#7Phone books. They’re thick too.
Re: If Printed Dictionaries Are History, What'll Children Sit on to Reach the Table?
#8Ridiculously large font on my 4k monitor. I have to zoom out to about 33% to make it readable on chrome.
On mobile, the left 25% of the screen is occupied by two tiny share buttons.
Re: If Printed Dictionaries Are History, What'll Children Sit on to Reach the Table?
#9Phone books. They’re thick too.
Phone book? What is that?
Re: If Printed Dictionaries Are History, What'll Children Sit on to Reach the Table?
#10Why, the phone book, of course. Usually the yellow pages, if you were in a reasonably sized metropolis. Nobody used a dictionary; I can’t imagine where this misinformation came from.
The advantage of using a phone book was that a new one was delivered, completely for free, every year, so you just had to hang on to an old one if you were particularly fastidious, and otherwise just used the current one. And they were softbacks, so were more comfy to sit on than a hardback dictionary. Not to mention that not all households had a dictionary, while I seem to recall that the market penetration of landlines was something like 98% of American households (with subsidization for poorer folks) and they all had phone books; both were pretty much necessary to carry on a normal life.
Now, let me tell you about paper roadmaps, and how they were available for free at pretty much all gas stations (though the ones at Esso were considered the best), on a little rack near the door. No problem perusing the selection while your gas was pumped and oil checked by the attendants. (And there was no food or candy available to buy, so your other options for amusement were pretty limited).