The lost definition

While reading something nowadays, when one gets stuck over an unfamiliar word, their first reaction is to get flabbergasted and the next is to take their phone out. Then, all it takes is an “Okay Google”, “Hey Siri” or “Hello Alexa” to understand what that word means. But travel back a few years, and one would probably have gone through the trouble of going to the shelf, checking their dictionary, and searching for the word alphabetically. For all that effort, one might think, “Somebody, please call the Queen and get this person knighted!”

While the Bible of English was a very important book even a few years back, now it only serves a ceremonious purpose. Are the days of the dictionary over? Some even argue that the dictionary is now outdated in terms of its definitions and meanings, since most of them were created decades ago.  

According to Anurag Tripathi, author of Dalal’s Street, we usually use a few hundred words to converse in our daily lives. In order to Google a word, one needs to know the word in the first place. A dictionary, on the other hand, is a compendium of all words along with their meanings. He continues, “Being an author and a traditionalist, I still swear by the dictionary. It’s just with the advancement of technology and platforms that people have more options to read and get the definitions of words.” He observes, “I am also very sure that people who learn from search engines without knowing the background of the story or the phrase can always damage their vocabulary.”

Shriya Sachdeva, a postgraduate student opines, “It’s evidently known that books and dictionaries have lost their significance. The advent of Google and its growing popularity has led to a further decline in the sales of dictionaries. But that in no sense means that dictionaries are outdated or insignificant. She explains, “The words still hold meaning. On Google one surely has faster access, but to be able to search on Google a topic or a word, one should read, and Google might be an all-new platform for information but its ancestors will always be books, dictionaries.”

Author Kiriti Sengupta says, “Online search engines are handy, no doubt, but the Net can never replace the importance of studying printed books as they not only impart myriad flavours to our learning process, but also enhance the level of patience and endurance among learners.”

But while there are people who may say that the Internet is the nail in the coffin of reading habits, author Baljeet Randhawa extends his support for the modern way. He expresses, "I disagree that search engines are detrimental to the reading habit. I have personally shifted to online reading because it’s way faster than other mediums — be it about finding meanings or doing research or reading news articles. With time we need to adapt to new technologies, and it’s making my process way easier too.”

Whether to use a dictionary or technology to know the meaning of a word, it is a matter of personal opinion. But, there has also been an observation that the reason why dictionaries aren’t used is because of them being outdated.

Author Awdhesh Singh explains, “There was a time when people used to refer to dictionaries to know the right meaning of a word. However, in modern times, dictionaries are outdated as people use Google. Words are living entities  whose meaning keep on changing with time, but dictionaries often ignore the change.”