April 16, 2000

1:48 AM

M-W redesignsbut doesn't actually improve the site. One curious (read: irritating) thing -- if you are currently looking at a definition (with the definition tab highlighted) and you click on the thesaurus tab, it doesn't automagically look up the same word in the thesaurus. It just gives a new search box. Dumb.
posted by sylloge (4 comments total)

It's a yuck new look.

To me, it looks like a 1997 web design, still stuck with a solid blue left-hand bar and that size of Arial Font. It's just, well, too plain.

Nothing cutting edge about M-W.
posted by williamtry at 3:23 AM on April 16, 2000

It's a dictionary, what do you expect? Maybe they don't want to make it too cool (like, say Britannica), so there will at least some appeal to actually buying the printed version.

"What does 'sylloge' mean?"

"Eh, I dunno, look it up on M-W.com."

"Nah, that site's so ugly... I'll look it up in my nice and pretty M-W on the bookshelf."

Or something.
posted by endquote at 9:09 AM on April 16, 2000

i agree. it's a dictionary, who the hell cares if it's cutting edge?
posted by dhoyt at 10:05 AM on April 16, 2000

Oh, I don't care whether it's cutting edge. I'd just prefer that it is useful (seeing as how dictionaries are intended to be used and everything). Incidentally, they seem to be working on it as we speak, er, write. They now have a button inside the tab which will take whatever word you were looking at in the dictionary and check it in the thesaurus (and vice versa). Better, but I still think the tab should do the same thing.
posted by sylloge at 1:31 PM on April 16, 2000