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Literary Review
Delights of discovery
THE Oxford Paperback Crossword Dictionary — the hardcover was published in 1998 — is a good reference book. Works of reference have a kind of peculiar appeal to hunters, browsers and gazers. This volume offers all the delights of discovery as well as verification and confirmation. The words are easy to find, for the lists are arranged according to the number of letters, serving as an ideal resource for anyone who likes solving crossword puzzles and playing word games.
The crossword puzzle appears in most newspapers, a one-word pastime familiar to everyone. The first crossword appeared in 19th-Century England. It has had a relatively short history. The early puzzles were simple, easy to solve. A few years later, they turned into a serious pastime and many became addicts. They had to guess, or think of, a word, or series of words, for which clues were given. The number of letters of the word was also given and one had to put them in order in the accompanying grid.
The lists in this dictionary are arranged according to the number of letters they contain, thus providing an easy, quick and clear way of finding words of a particular length. Many may prefer this to a traditional dictionary. With the latter, one has to pick out words of the proper length in alphabetical order — a painstaking task, I would say, considering that doing a crossword is just to pass time, say, on a train trip. Or strap hanging in a bus while going to work, if you can manage that.
In this particular dictionary, there are no meanings, no definitions or explanations. All a person has to do is locate words at a glance, scan the lists for particular letter combinations. The words are arranged alphabetically within each numerical group.
The over 215,000 entries have been taken from the Oxford Concise Dictionary and The New Shorter Dictionary. Standard words as well as variant spellings, phrases and irregular forms are included, as have irregular inflections of verbs and plural forms of nouns, where the correct form may not be obvious. For instance, you will find "alibis", may be to show that the plural of alibi is not alibies. Widely used abbreviations, such as AIDS, appear. A comprehensive volume, it is worth the price and is an ideal resource for those who like doing crossword puzzles and other word games.
Oxford Paperback Crossword Dictionary, Oxford University Press, Rs. 445.
N. NANDAKUMAR
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