Shelving the dictionary

My daughter hates using a dictionary, whether it's the Oxford Concise, Websters or Larousse's. Since Firefox and the nifty search form field you can customize yourself, I've been doing a lot of my research online, and I don't mean merely googling.

I've added Merriam-Websters to my search box now, along with The Free Dictionary and, of course, Wikipedia. It takes a lot more time and effort to pull my dog-eared Oxford down from the bookshelf than to type a few words into a browser window. Plus the online dictionaries allow me to access antiquated words and jargon as well—and to check origin, very important when you write historicals.

Kassie doesn't have her own computer and she's not getting one for a few years yet. When she does I wonder whether I'll show her the wonders of technology and confess that Mommy's much-loved dictionary is gathering dust.