ObjectGraph has a basic dictionary web app with ajax that’s worth mentioning.
Type in a term and the results appear as you type each letter. It works much like Google Suggest. There are a number of dictionary options, and a thesaurus. From Download Squad.
Personally, I find this firefox extension dictionary much more useful – but ObjectGraph’s ajax implementation gets them extra points.
ObjectGraphs’s blog is here and a description of how it works is here.
Great concept. However, to repeat comments I’ve made elsewhere, and as Download Squad points out, it seems that its d-base is based on a dictionary from 1913!!! That’s a pretty old corpus. The language has changed a lot since then. Look up “weird�, “terrible�, or “date� and you’ll see what I mean. In addition to problems with old words that have acquired new senses over the last 92 years, the ObjectGraph corpus is missing new words that have since entered the English language such as taco, tsunami, wow, and workout (referring to either exercise or the bankruptcy alternative).
Of course, using an out-of-date dictionary whose copyright has expired is perhaps the only way ObjectGraph could obtain a corpus without paying an exorbitant licensing fee to dictionary publishers. Perhaps they could link up with Wiktionary in order to obtain a more current reference base?
This may all seem pedantic to native speakers that mostly consult online dictionaries for spelling help and who will be able to navigate their way around the occasional archaism. However, English is a global language with more second language speakers than native ones and these non-native speakers will have trouble making sense of the outdated definitions.
The interesting thing is that comparing definitions on ObjectGraph, Dictionary.com, and Wiktionary helps showcase the power of wikis for capturing information related to non-static organisms like language. To take one example, look up “cheesy�. ObjectGraph lacks the modern sense. Dictionary.com defines the modern sense inaccurately. Only Wiktionary gets it right.
ObjectGraph provides one sense: “Having the nature, qualities, taste, form, consistency, or appearance of cheese.�
Dictionary.com provides two senses: 1) Containing or resembling cheese; and 2) Informal. Of poor quality; shoddy.
And on Wiktionary: 1) of or related to cheese; 2) sappy; overly dramatic, emotional, clichéd or silly
To repeat – I like the concept –there’s just a bit of a clash between all the 21st century Ajax and your greatgrandmother’s English.
You missed the whole point here, the corpus doesn’t matter at all, the main thing is the technology behind it and how well they expxlained it.
I’m pretty positive it wasn’t their plan to make a serious dictionary out of this.
Hello, I Created this dictionary. Now it is available on the iPhone
http://itunes.a...875763&mt=8