YES!

I really appreciate dictionaries. On a recent visit to CPH. I made the rounds of all the academic bookstores just to get two technical (legal and medical) dictionaries.

Unfortunately, without any luck

I also subscribe to an online dictionary, but there are many common mistakes in it and I don't trust it. I only use it when my memory (!) is playing tricks on me.

Nanna

Of course, I use a paper edition of OED and other dictionaries of English, etymology, foreign words, spelling, etc., but for my professional needs for the most recent specialized terminology in my combo Internet resources are unbeatable.

Let's take the example from Post #166945. Here is what I find in my paper dictionaries:

monetize - give a fixed value as currency; put (a metal) into circulation as money (Oxford Encyclopedic English)

monetization - sale of tresury bills to banks by the UK government to finance a budgetary deficit (The Oxford Dictionary for the Business World)

monetizzare (Italian) - to realize an investment at a profit (International Dictionary of the Securities Industry)

None of the above meanings coincides with what I found on the Web...

Right!

A great way to bring home the point.  It's true, the Internet is coming into its own. In 2001, it was very difficult to find a good ordinary online DA < > EN dictionary, let alone one with specialized terminology.  Maybe it's time to exchange the cheap online one for something better.

Nanna

In any case, it is desirable that translators use dictionaries regardless of their form. The Financial Times has one of these silly stories that are usually titled "Lost in translation":

At issue was whether Cifa might move some functions to Russia. From his Italian vantage point, Mr Ferrari conceived of this as moving work away from Milan and therefore described the process as “delocalisation”.

In China, foreign investors describe a similar process – replacing expensive expatriate staff with Chinese employees in order to save costs – as “localisation”. What, Zoomlion executives wondered, was this “delocalisation”? The prefix “de” seemed to imply it was the opposite of localisation, and it took the two parties some time to figure out that they were talking about the same thing. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/5c7c117c-e197-11dd-afa0-0000779fd2ac.html

The stupidity of such a "Lost in translation" column is borne out by the fact that any dictionary, whether paper or electronic, will contain the meaning of 'delocalize' as 'remove from the proper or usual locality' (wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn).

One logical conclusion is that this poll should contain not only a third but also a fourth option reading: 'No, I don't use any dictionaries at all.' 

Jacek

My German / English specialized dictionaries are in paper format for the most part, while the French / English ones are electronic.  I couldn't tell you why.  It's what was available.

Maxi

Originally written by Dodo Kaipdodo on January 18, 2009 10:37 PM  an additional boon of some traditional dictionaries and especially encyclopedias is using them does good for ones muscles. One of those owned by me weighs more than 4 kg.

Yes, I too have one of those. Over time, I've man-handled the hard-cover binding right off of it. No one knows how to fix this incredibly pricey dictionary so now I avoid using it.

Nanna