In late February 2008 the internet buzzed with chat about President Sarkozy's abrupt verbal rebuff of a French farmer who refused to shake the president's hand. There was much discussion of how strong President Sarkozy's language was and what exactly it meant in English. An authoritative, reliable bilingual dictionary was of the essence and the new edition of the Harrap's Unabridged would certainly have been up to the job. Another invaluable source might have been Rude French (Pilard, 2002) (RR 2003/187), but interestingly author Georges Pilard is also part of the Harrap French bilingual dictionary team.
In 2007 Harrap launched the second edition of their much acclaimed Harrap's Unabridged Dictionary. The first edition was released in 2001 (RR 2003/74) as a replacement for the celebrated classic but outdated Harrap Standard French Dictionary. The second edition of the Unabridged is the work of a well established and experienced team of editors, lexicographers and other specialists led by Anna Stevenson. The new edition contains over 400,000 words and phrases with a wealth of examples and guidance on use, context and pronunciation. There is coverage of technical or specialist language, idioms, colloquial language, slang and international/regional variations. Allusions are explained in special dedicated boxes and include phrases such as “You've never had it so good”; “Take me to your leader”; and “Does exactly what it says on the tin”. Explanations of cultural concepts have dedicated boxes, for example, Rhyming Slang, Smoking Ban, Yellow Lines and Soap Operas. The UK TV soap opera Coronation Street even has its own entry. As with the previous edition, a particularly interesting aspect is the translation of titles of films, books and works of art. Obviously the Unabridged coverage is not fully comprehensive but it is a very reasonable compromise.
Bilingual dictionary publishers now seem to feel obliged to offer a range of extra features. The Unabridged provides examples of letters (including a rather stereotypical one complaining about a late running British train) and e‐mails. There are charts of administrative and legal systems as well as military ranks. We even get a twenty‐five page‐long historical and cultural chronology for both Britain and France.
As with the previous edition of the Unabridged the size of the print does not aid legibility. Of course Harrap have to make a compromise between price, size, weight and packing in as much coverage as possible. Nevertheless, I feel Harrap's own French Business Dictionary (RR 2003/447) provides a better compromise in terms of legibility. Essentially, the binding of the Unabridged is fairly robust given its bulk and weight.
The Unabridged offers reasonable value at £40 per volume and £70 for both volumes but it should be noted that special offers are sometimes available on the Harrap web site (www.chambersharrap.co.uk). Laptop users might like the option of buying the CD‐ROM version of the Unabridged together with the CD‐ROM version of the Harrap's French Business Dictionary. The Unabridged is an excellent piece of work and deserves much praise. It will be an essential part of a library reference section but that reference section certainly needs to include the rival products of Oxford and Collins which each have their own qualities. Diversity is essential in the library reference section as opposed to loyalty to the products of one publisher. Some library users evidently prefer the rival products. The Unabridged, however, certainly offers us hours of interest browsing the definitions of Monsieur Sarkozy's more choice language.
