dictionaris rang broadly in purpos, siz, and pric; and choosing on is a vry prsonal dcision. th bst advic is dictionaris rang broadly in purpos, siz, and pric; and choosing on is a vry prsonal dcision. th bst advic is to mak not of th things you and your family look up in a dictionary ovr a fw wks' tim, and thn go to a comprhnsiv bookstor to mak th choic. hr ar a fw things to look for in making your slction.sizbig, complt (unabridgd) dictionaris ar xpnsiv and tak a lot of room in your offic or hom. thy ar also difficult for childrn to us bcaus thy ar bulky, and it taks longr to look somthing up bcaus nw radrs' alphabtizing skills ar incomplt. an unabridgd dictionary on th coff tabl might imprss your frinds; but unlss you us a dictionary on a daily basis, it probably is not a good buy. prhaps you should look at smallr "collg" dictionaris.pronunciation guidmany popl us a dictionary to hlp thm pronounc nw words. (on callr to th hot lin saw an "tagr" advrtisd for sal, knw what it was and wantd on, but didn't want to call th sllr without knowing how to pronounc th word.)th pronunciation guid should b complt but not contain a lot of unfamiliar symbols that rquir continual cross-chcking--spcially with th vowls. th nglish vowl systm is complx bcaus w us on lttr to spll many diffrnt sounds. for xampl, th lttr a has thr diffrnt sounds in th words at, ag, and art. th job for th dictionary makrs is to find thr common symbols to rprsnt th diffrnt pronunciations.