Which reference book do you use most?

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Which reference book in your possession do you, erm, refer to most and why?

― MarkH (MarkH), Sunday, 9 January 2005 12:39 (twenty years ago)

Nothing, really. Between the Wikipedia and the rest of the Internet, I don't have too much essential I need reference for.

For me, therefore, the answer is probably the American Cinematography Handbook.

― Girolamo Savonarola, Sunday, 9 January 2005 14:21 (twenty years ago)

At home, either the Trouser Press Guide to 90's Rock or the Official Scrabble Dictionary. At work, the dictionary and the Gregg Reference Manual (for matters pertaining to grammar).

― n/a (Nick A.), Sunday, 9 January 2005 14:38 (twenty years ago)

maybe Chambers Biographical Dictionary or the Guinness Book Of Hit Singles or Halliwell's Moviegoers' Companion or Brewer's Phrase And Fable, I'm not sure. Like everyone else, more and more is looked up online now.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Sunday, 9 January 2005 14:41 (twenty years ago)

shorter OED

― Bumfluff, Sunday, 9 January 2005 14:52 (twenty years ago)

Official Scrabble Players Dictionary, 3e.

― I Am Curious (George) (Rock Hardy), Sunday, 9 January 2005 15:12 (twenty years ago)

The New Columbia Encyclopedia, but it's way out of date.

Betcha the Physician's Desk Reference (PDR), Lester Bangs' favorite reference book, pops up on this thread before long.

― lovebug starski (lovebug starski), Sunday, 9 January 2005 15:16 (twenty years ago)

Probably an old edition of the American Heritage Dictionary, because I'm a poor speller (and I don't feel like spending money on a new dictionary).

― RS LaRue (rockist_scientist), Sunday, 9 January 2005 15:35 (twenty years ago)

The dictionary. Both the Oxford one and an English-Catalan one for talking with my friend Claudia, whose English is near perfect, but words like hovel and hangnail and chlorine aren't usually covered when teaching English as a second (or third in her case) language.

― Anna (Anna), Sunday, 9 January 2005 15:46 (twenty years ago)

Kluwer - Juridisch Lexicon (v.d. End)
van Dale - Groot woordenboek Nederlands - Engels
OED

― Maria D. (Maria D.), Sunday, 9 January 2005 15:53 (twenty years ago)

New Zealand Ferns and Allied Plants
Small-leaved shrubs of New Zealand
And Wetland Plants which some fucker has stolen frover xmas and I miss daily.

― isadora (isadora), Sunday, 9 January 2005 19:52 (twenty years ago)

Guiness Hits of the 80's - Paul Gambaccini, Tim Rice and Jonathon Rice

― jel -- (jel), Monday, 10 January 2005 18:25 (twenty years ago)

google.com

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Monday, 10 January 2005 18:27 (twenty years ago)

Call me a corny fuxx0r, but it's Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Tenth Edition. I'd get the latest edition, (does it go to eleven now?) but I don't like how they rejigger all the pictures when they change editions, as they did when they from Nine to Ten.

― Ken L (Ken L), Monday, 10 January 2005 18:32 (twenty years ago)

the A-Z of Greater London

― jel -- (jel), Monday, 10 January 2005 18:35 (twenty years ago)

International Dictionary of Finance, Fourth Edition
Garner's Modern American Usage
A Dictionary of Modern Legal Usage, Second Edition
The New Fowler's Modern English Usage
Argos Catalogue Autumn-Winter 2004

― Puddin'Head Miller (PJ Miller), Tuesday, 11 January 2005 16:13 (twenty years ago)

For me personally, a really old edition of the short version of the OED. It definitely comes in handy.

― Leon the Fatboy (Ex Leon), Tuesday, 11 January 2005 16:17 (twenty years ago)

Royal Horticultural Society - Gardening Through the Year

― Madchen (Madchen), Tuesday, 11 January 2005 16:20 (twenty years ago)

I bought myself the Shorter OED on CD-ROM and then years later someone gave me the print version as a lavish birthday present. I'm not recommending anyone else double up like this, I will only tell you this: the disk is nice for searching but there is some aesthetic pleasure that can only be gotten by looking through the books.

― Ken L (Ken L), Tuesday, 11 January 2005 16:22 (twenty years ago)

I pretty much get all of my references online nowadays.

― o. nate (onate), Tuesday, 11 January 2005 16:23 (twenty years ago)

Chambers Dictionary of Science & Technology

― aldo_cowpat (aldo_cowpat), Tuesday, 11 January 2005 16:28 (twenty years ago)

Usborne guide to human reproduction.

― Jarlr'mai (jarlrmai), Tuesday, 11 January 2005 16:29 (twenty years ago)

Does the phone book count?

― Trip Maker (Sean Witzman), Tuesday, 11 January 2005 16:30 (twenty years ago)

David Thomson: A Biographical Dictionary of Film
Some Oxford Dictionary or other
Time Out Film Guide

But really mostly: imdb

― Baxter, Friend to Bears, Tuesday, 11 January 2005 16:38 (twenty years ago)

Gah, beat me to it. pro.imdb.com fo sho.

― Markelby (Mark C), Tuesday, 11 January 2005 16:44 (twenty years ago)

what happens there? do they have all the cool jams and the slick facts?

― Baxter, Friend to Bears, Tuesday, 11 January 2005 16:45 (twenty years ago)

Oxford Shorter, Encyclopaedia of Gastronomy, Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, Brewer's Ph&F, Oxford Dictionary of Etymology, Kobbe's Opera Book.

(my family keeps them by the kitchen table so people can resort to authority in arguments er discussions.)

― cis (cis), Tuesday, 11 January 2005 16:48 (twenty years ago)

Amazed neither weisenheimer nor sybarite has come to post a sex manual. If you have such an impulse, spare our poor thread and go to, say, OEDILF, My Future?

(Proposal subject to OK from thread creator.)

― Ken L (Ken L), Tuesday, 11 January 2005 16:52 (twenty years ago)

Oh aye, and at home Larousse Gastronomique.

― aldo_cowpat (aldo_cowpat), Tuesday, 11 January 2005 16:55 (twenty years ago)

This cool guide to Chicago architecture
The Slow Food Guide to Chicago
The Chicago Style Manual (where I learned to wear brown cords)

― Pears can just fuck right off. (kenan), Tuesday, 11 January 2005 17:06 (twenty years ago)

Shift-F7. Heh.

― Masonic Boom-Boom (kate), Wednesday, 12 January 2005 10:58 (twenty years ago)

Volume: The International Discography of the New Wave.

― Douglas (Douglas), Wednesday, 12 January 2005 11:06 (twenty years ago)

London A-Z
Guardian Media Directory
ODQ

― beanz (beanz), Wednesday, 12 January 2005 11:08 (twenty years ago)

Chambers Official Scrabble Words International, oed.com and gamefaqs.com because I am a lame CHEATER!

― Starry (hello chickens), Wednesday, 12 January 2005 11:08 (twenty years ago)

The A-Z counts as a reference book?

― Masonic Boom-Boom (kate), Wednesday, 12 January 2005 11:15 (twenty years ago)

I used to swear by my Pears Cyclopedia when I was a child, the older versions even had large sections on Phsycology but these were omitted in more recent versions.
Now it's just the internet and Mr Google that can answer my quanderies. With such toughies as 'what was the name of the jester in Rentaghost?', Pears couldn't even compete now.

― Ste (Fuzzy), Wednesday, 12 January 2005 12:09 (twenty years ago)

I know that one! Only because I also remember we had a schoolteacher who was nicknamed "Claypole" because of his beard.

― caitlin (caitlin), Wednesday, 12 January 2005 12:17 (twenty years ago)

(cis: Your family argues about opera?)

― Casuistry (Chris P), Wednesday, 12 January 2005 12:33 (twenty years ago)

(xpost: I probably wouldn't have put in A-Z if jel hadn't already)

― beanz (beanz), Wednesday, 12 January 2005 17:04 (twenty years ago)

Cyclopedia
One time a friend and I were at a party and we noticed that the host had a copy of The Catholic Encyclopedia, so we thought of a character called Catholic Encyclopedia Brown. My friend said "How did Catholic Encyclopedia Brown know that the Cardinal was lying?"

― Ken L (Ken L), Wednesday, 12 January 2005 17:09 (twenty years ago)

(Casuistry: doesn't everyone?)

― cis (cis), Wednesday, 12 January 2005 23:22 (twenty years ago)

Billboard's Book of Number One Hits by Fred Bronson

― Matos W.K. (M Matos), Wednesday, 12 January 2005 23:24 (twenty years ago)

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