Encarta Concise English Dictionary

(Published by Bloomsbury/Microsoft/St Martin's Press/Macmillan Australia, £17.99).

Editor in Chief: Dr Kathy Rooney.

This new edition of a dictionary is unique in that it helps the bad speller to overcome his lack of words. After all if you can't spell, how do you look up the correct spelling?

So 700 incorrect spellings are featured, and then crossed out (so you can't make a mistake), with the correct one beside it in bold lettering.

So acuire (incorrect) is accompanied by acquire (correct). The most common mistakes we make are featured in this way.

Another problem dictionary users can have is the one with the word that sounds the same.

Which spelling for which meaning? Principle or principal? Hoard or horde?

The usual help of usage is featured, but there is a new one of linking words to particular works.

If you look up expectation there is a link to Great Expectations by Charles Dickens.

Another useful item is Quick Facts which follows the development of new technology, and explains the old, so "Baroque" is accompanied by a synopsis of Key Facts and "Human Genome Project" explains this new science precisely.

Also are some of the new spellings for those of us with access to mobile phones or e-mail. So L8r is later.

Many notable people from history and the present are also featured, and there are line illustrations too; so calling this weighty tome a dictionary isn't quite true - it is more of a mini encyclopaedia for today's students, and its an eye opener for those of us who thought we were good spellers and knew our geography.

Russia isn't Russia or the CCCP any more is it? All the new republics are featured.

So, if you are a crossword freak - this is the book for you.

Annie Dendy