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Monday, August 30, 2010

Tech / Books Down with OED

Posted by Paul Constant on Mon, Aug 30, 2010 at 2:23 PM

Screen_shot_2010-08-30_at_12.31.26_PM.png

The publishers of the Oxford English Dictionary have said that they doubt the third edition of the OED will be published in a print book format. They expect it will be online-only. Considering that the next edition of the OED will likely see print sometime after 2037, I expect that they are probably correct.

The last time I consulted my print copy of the OED was about six months ago. Before that, it was several years. I check all my definitions online nowadays. That said, the way this digitization of our book culture is going, if we ever experience serious sunspot activity, we are totally screwed as a species.

Comments (13) RSS

Oldest First Unregistered On Registered On Add a comment

I hope they print at least one.

Posted by Patti on August 30, 2010 at 2:31 PM

Not to worry. There's some old codger out there who will print out every last page of online content and have the whole hoard stacked to the rafters.

Posted by mmennonno

on August 30, 2010 at 2:32 PM

The value of the OED isn't just in the defintions, IMO. It's all about the attestations, and the OED has the finest collection of historical attestations anywhere.

Posted by hj on August 30, 2010 at 2:43 PM

What #3 said. OED was always my favorite dictionary.

Posted by Dougsf on August 30, 2010 at 2:50 PM

I heard about this on NPR the other day, they were saying the print version cost $3,000, but the online only version would only be 1/3 of that price. $1,000 for an online dictionary? WTF?

Posted by Amnt on August 30, 2010 at 2:50 PM

the greatest book on earth.

Posted by myr on August 30, 2010 at 3:57 PM

I read the OED online via my SPL account. Much better use of library money than building mod homeless shelters.

Posted by elenchos on August 30, 2010 at 4:13 PM

I just bought a Kindle (one of the new ones that just came out on Thursday) and it came with a copy of the OED. That alone is worth the purchase price to me.

Posted by Q*bert H. Humphrey on August 30, 2010 at 5:03 PM

In Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, there is a library that stocks all the books published in print form even though nobody uses printed books, they just plug their brains into the internet thingy. It was totally empty with robot librarians stocking and restocking the unused books.

Posted by vooodooo84 on August 30, 2010 at 5:24 PM

@8: The Kindle comes with the New Oxford American Dictionary. Not the same as the 20-volume OED.

Posted by Free Lunch on August 30, 2010 at 6:15 PM

The OED is more than a dictionary, and few individuals buy the full multivolume set. Real nerds will buy the 1-volume compact, but usually these babies are purchased by libraries. I'm an academic librarian, and I happily sent ours to the stacks when I was able to subscribe to the online OED for our university. This is a good move by Oxford.

Posted by lazybrarian on August 30, 2010 at 8:00 PM

I don't need no stuffy book to give me definitions when I've got google. For instance, let's see what each says about "santorum".

Posted by madcap on August 31, 2010 at 2:19 AM

@10, the Kindle does come with the New Oxford American Dictionary. It also comes with the Oxford Dictionary of English. But you're right, the ODE is not the OED.

Interestingly, "adze" is in the ODE.

Posted by Q*bert H. Humphrey on August 31, 2010 at 12:37 PM