Info Tool

This is just about the biggest single-issue dictionary I have ever clapped eyes on. It's big in both format and in content. It contains definitions of 22,000+ words and expressions related to all aspects of business, e-Commerce, and the Internet.

The topics covered really are exhaustively comprehensive: accounting, advertising, banking, business and company law, credit control, customer service, data communications, finance, foreign exchange, human resources, information technology, knowledge management, marketing, planning, purchasing, risk management, securities trading, shipping, stock market, and training. And that's just a selective list of its subject areas.


The explanations of fairly complex issues are offered in non-technical language, which makes it user-friendly, despite its intimidating size. I would guess that there are two target audiences for a work of reference of this kind. The first - ordinary people working in business and management who need help with language outside their own specialisms. The second - people whose first language is not English and who are finding their way in the world of commerce and international trade.

All the principal words are cross-referenced, spelling is US-English throughout, and the entries are not cluttered with the sort of abbreviations and symbols which often over-complicate dictionaries of this size.

Law of Diminishing Returns Concept in economics that if one factor of production (number of workers, for example) is increased while other factors (machines and workspace, for example) are held constant, the resulting increase in output will level-off after some time then decline. Although the marginal productivity of the workforce decreases as output increases, diminishing returns do not mean negative returns until (in this example) the number of workers exceeds the available machines or workspace. In everyday experience, this law is expressed as "the gain is not worth the pain."
Law of Effect Observation that people choose their behaviour (from an almost infinite variety of behaviours) based on what response (satisfaction or discomfort, punishment or reward) it brings. Behaviours with pleasant outcomes are repeated; those with unpleasant outcomes are shunned. Popularized by the US psychologist E.L.Thorndike (1874-1949).

Entries are laid out in conventional double columns, which makes the book easy to use and read, despite its size. And all the entries relating to information technology which I checked were both accurate and smack up to date.