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The American Heritage Talking Dictionary

I. BRIEF OVERVIEW OF STRUCTURE AND CONTENT:

The American Heritage Talking Dictionary CD-ROM contains full definitions, parts of speech, homographs, word origins, idioms and proper usage. It also pronounces words aurally. And the WordHunter feature allows you to locate a word by typing in key words that are likely to appear in the word's definition.

II. STARTING UP THE AMERICAN HERITAGE TALKING DICTIONARY:

Place the CD-ROM in the computer's CD carrier by pressing the button below and to the right of it. Click and hold on Start, Programs, American Heritage Dictionary and American Heritage Dictionary (in the submenu) as the menus open for you. If you have any difficulties, please ask a staff member for assistance.

You should arrive at The American Heritage Dictionary dialog box.

III. USING THE AMERICAN HERITAGE TALKING DICTIONARY:

At the top of The American Heritage Dictionary dialog box, you will see eight buttons. To navigate through the CD, click on these buttons. Following are descriptions of these buttons (as they appear from left to right on the screen):

  • Dictionary: Click on this button when you want to look up a word. Type the word you want to look up. It will appear at the cursor in the long rectangular box just below the eight function buttons. In the Results box (to the right), notice that the word you typed in is displayed in its alphabetical context. Double click on your word in this box and the word, its definition, usage information, etc., will appear in the large white box on the left half of the screen.
  • Thesaurus: After you've called up your word, click on the Thesaurus button. You will see the output in the large white box on the left half of the screen.
  • Split: Clicking on this button will split the left box horizontally so that the upper half displays the dictionary's output and the bottom half the thesaurus's.
  • Copy: This button copies a word or phrase from the dictionary into your Windows document. Simply highlight the text you want to copy, click on the Copy button (or you can choose Copy from the Edit menu), return to your document, move the cursor to the place where you want the text to appear, and then go to the Edit menu and choose Paste.
  • Pronounce: Click on this button to hear the pronunciation of the selected word.
  • Left/Right Arrow: These arrows move alphabetically to words located before (left arrow) or after (right arrow) the selected word.
  • WordHunter: This button opens up a dialog box that allows you to search for a word by its definition. Type in either a word or words that might be found in the definition of the word (or in some cases, in the word itself) for which you are searching. For example, if you are unable to think of the word "negus" (a beverage) but know some of its ingredients (wine and sugar, say), you can type in "wine" and "sugar." The program will then search for those words in the data base's word and definition fields and display a list of words whose definitions contain the words "wine" and "sugar," in which you would find "negus."
  • Anagrams: Click on the Anagrams button in order to call up the Anagrams box. Type in the word from which you want anagrams made. Then select either Full Word or Minimum Number of Letters by clicking in one of the white circles to the left of each selection. Full Word will give you anagrams made up of all the letter in the word you've selected. If you choose Minimum Number of Letters, you will have to select a number that will represent the fewest number of letters from which an anagram can be made. For example, if you type in "4," the program will eliminate anagrams of three letters or less.

A Few More Buttons:

  • The Results Button: Just below the Results box you will see the Results button. Click on it in order to display the results of your last few searches (both dictionary and anagram searches).
  • The Browse Button: Click on the Browse button when you want to scan the entire dictionary. When you click and drag the slider bar, located at the right of the Results box, a small blue box (containing a letter denoting your position in the dictionary) will open inside the Results box. As you move the slider bar the letter in the box will change. Stop it at the desired letter, and the Results box will display words from that portion of the dictionary. Then you can scroll through the list using the slider bar.

IV. EXITING THE AMERICAN HERITAGE DICTIONARY AND REMOVING THE CD-ROM:

When you are ready to exit the program, simply click on File and then Exit. Then remove the CD-ROM from the CD carrier by pressing the button below and to the right of the tray. Please place the CD back in its case and return it to an Etext staffer.