The day a child clicks a mouse of a computer in search of information for his projects assigned to him by his school teachers he falls into the hands of Mr Netwar Lal – also known by the endearing sobriquet Google Baba.
As the child grows up, the magic of Mr Netwar Lal casts a spell on him. By the time he flowers into an adult, Mr Netwar Lal has done the damage, and his love for this fellow – omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient – has spread to pandemic proportions.
The papers of Pickwick barely remain relevant to him anymore. The information stored in his sub-consciousness is slowly washed out.
Even for an argument on petty issues he seeks the help of Mr Netwar Lal who, rather than helping him, embraces the info-seeker into his labyrinth.
The professionals are, however, slightly better than the students, because they know the way they should take to reach their destination.
Most of the disciples of Netwar Lal cannot even believe that something printed on a piece of paper can be more correct than the information provided by their Guru.
Nor their teachers and parents tell them about the authenticity of the print medium.
But there is nothing wrong in using information provided by Mr Netwar Lal who, most of the times – though may not be wrong – yet confusing.
The situation has come to such a pass that when a doctor prescribes medicines to patients, they consult Google Baba to know whether the drugs will be effective or not.
If the medicines prescribed by the doctor concerned match with the ones prescribed by Mr Netwar Lal they say, “The doctor is good, because the information about the medicines approved by their revered Baba.”
Ergo, a doctor in the state capital has written outside his clinic: If the patients have any problem with any medicine, they should consult the doctor instead of searching for information on the Internet.
Electronic dictionaries
The electronic dictionaries have several advantages over the printed ones. They not only save time but also offer easy access besides being available free of cost.
Yet they lack lexicographical details. These dictionaries do not cite the sources of the examples.
There are problems with hybridisation, corpus coherence, data reliability, access path, personalisation and quality.
The contents of online dictionaries can be changed from time to time.
An expression used by any newspaper or a web page writer is immediately included in the electronic dictionaries. Such expressions are good for writing on a web page, but not for print medium.
This is the reason why the paper dictionaries like Chambers 21st Century Dictionary, Shorter Oxford English Dictionary (SOED), Collins Cobuild English Dictionary are not available.
The father of all dictionaries – the Oxford English Dictionaries (in 20 volumes) – is also not available free of cost.
The SOED cites well-known authors, newspapers and magazines. So, this is the real Baba for the editors of The Economist, The Times London, and the Guardian.
The BBC, another authority on the English language, uses its own dictionary – BBC English Dictionary and, of course, SOED.
There are some differences between what has been written in online editions of some well-known newspapers and what has been written in their print editions.
The style sheet of ‘the Economist’ advises the language learners against using ‘as per’ which it says ‘half Latin, and half English.’
Many online dictionaries have cited whether it should be ‘lose one’s life in covid-19 pandemic’ or ‘lose one’s life to covid-19 or due to covid-19’ or ‘lose one’s life from covid-19.’
SOED (deluxe edition, UK), the best in the world now – though very costly – does not say anything about whether ‘due to’ or ‘to’ or ‘from’ should be used with ‘lose one’s life.’
Yet, it quotes an example from a well-known playwright L Hellman: They had lost a brother in the yellow fever epidemic.
BBC says, “More than 127,000 people in the UK who have…. Corona virus lost their lives.”
Even the Guardian has opted for it. The paper writes: Remembering those who have lost their lives in this pandemic. Yet, at some places, it was written ‘due to covid-19’ or ‘…to covid-19.’
Ergo, the online dictionaries barely cite good authors. So, experts advise the students, teachers and scholars to use authentic documents – though it may be time-consuming.
