In Praise of The Chambers Dictionary

From Shelf Awareness:

On the occasion of the closing of publisher Chambers Harrap, Scotland native Robin Dunn, director of the St. John's College Bookstore, Annapolis, Md., wrote:

In my more tender years, there must have been at least three dozen sizable publishers in Edinburgh (and more in Glasgow, not least the pre-Harper/Murdoch Collins). There was much wailing and anguish when Chambers lost its independence (even if it was to the French rather than to "the neighbours.") Now this. As was famously said at the time of the loss of the country's political independence in 1707, it's "the end o’ a lang sang."

Fortunately, the abyss left by the departed has been shrinking, thanks notably to Canongate (founded in 1973) and Mainstream (1978).

The Chambers Dictionary is the bestselling English-language dictionary at SJC Bookstore. If you suspect nationalist-inspired handselling, by the way, you'd be wrong. It's because the word got out long ago that it's simply THE best. Why? Well, I could spout off about comprehensiveness, layout, presentation of examples and pronunciation and so forth. In all those respects it's excellent--but the biggest reason is that (so to speak) it converses with English as an entire family, rather than selecting just one of its members to interview. Thus, Chambers offers standard "British" English--which mostly means English English--cheek by jowl with U.S., Australian, Caribbean, Scots, Canadian, South African, New Zealand, Irish and other variations of usage and spelling. Such versatility makes it uniquely useful among dictionaries.