Posted on 08/29/2010 5:09:06 PM PDT by Stoat
It was first published 126 years ago and is respected the world over.
But the Oxford English Dictionary will never appear in print again, its owners have announced.
Instead, the 80 lexicographers who have been working on the third edition for the past 21 years have been told the fruits of their labour will exist solely online.
The OED has been available on the internet for the past ten years and receives two million hits a month from subscribers who pay £205 a year, plus VAT, to access it.
Oxford University Press says the dominance of the internet means the latest update to the definitive record of the English language - currently 28 per cent complete - will never be published in print.
'The print dictionary market is just disappearing - it is falling away by tens of per cent a year,' said Nigel Portwood, 44, chief executive of OUP.
'Our primary purpose - and this takes a bit of adjusting to - is not profit, it is the dissemination of knowledge,' he said.
'Print is still pretty important round here but, wherever possible, if there is an opportunity, we are moving out of it.'
The printed dictionary has a shelf life of another 30 years, he predicts.
The third edition is only expected to be completed by 2037. The OUP has already stopped producing illustrated reference books because of the growing popularity of the Wikipedia website.
R
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Oh god, noooooooo!
a talking toaster would provide conversation,too! roflmao
Or you drip transmission fluid on it in the garage.
RIP. I spend less and less time in front of screens anyway as I grow older, and I shall cherish my weighty, non-virtual, hard copy 2 volume Shorter Oxford English Dictionary above all others until I pass it on at the end of my life.
Any sane youngsters out there who love such things enough to get in line for it when I go? No posers who might change their minds as they “mature,” or sell it as an antique, please.
LMAO ;-)
It's true....tech is wonderful but they still haven't perfected spellcheck. I often have to sigh when I'm handed somebody's written work with the syntax and punctuatiion all wrong, and when I mention the errors they indignantly reply "but I used spell-check on it!" as though that's supposed to be the Holy Grail of English reference standards. It provides an opportunity for them to blame someone else when it's simply a matter of the writer being an inarticulate oaf.
Time to snap up used copies of the Second Edition full-version. I've got the CD but I need the deadtree version.
Oh, I want a dead-tree OED! Maybe the Friends of the Library will have one for sale. Disks are not the same: you can’t take one to the bathroom like a book!
NOW the computer revolution is complete!
Sad.
Yes, another Simon Winchester book. I’ve read most of his although he’s a wacky lib. When he rights about history or geology though he keeps to the straight and narrow. Krakatao is really good too as is All About Everything which I mentioned earlier on this thread and is about the creation of the Oxford Dictionary.
And on the topic of listening verses reading books... I do both. I have vision issues and I walk a lot and listen to books and plays on my iphone. I also enjoy reading the actual book though since it allows me to go at my own pace and back up and read the same paragraph several times if I wish.
Wow. Obama works for you??
OTOH, a little tranny fluid or oil never hurt the pages of my old Motors Manuals; in fact, it seems to have helped preserve them.
You are my new BFF.
Maybe the Friends of the Library will have one for sale.
I fear that many libraries will be hanging onto their full sets until 2037 when the 3rd edition of the OED full-version will be released online.
Their only other current option is the CD or online subscription service. I have to keep reinstalling my OED CD because it's really pretty crappy software. I think that the same people who designed the Lucas "Prince of Darkness" electrical components for older Jaguars and Triumphs wrote the software for the OED CD's. ;-)
In these economic times where cities are actually closing libraries to cut costs, I doubt that many will be dumping their deadtree OED versions that they've already paid for in exchange for the cruddy software or the expensive online subscription.
Disks are not the same: you can’t take one to the bathroom like a book!
Agreed. And if you accidentally knock your Ann Coulter paperback into the tub, it's a few dollars to replace. If you knock your iPad, Kindle or other eBook reader into the tub it could run from hundreds to thousands depending upon the platform and how many eBooks you've got stored on there.
I had somebody come for the high-pressure Britannica sale, where at that time they would give you a free dictionary, thesaurus and another paperback if you would endure listening to them, lol.
I guess we can give away the World Books rather than throw them away. Maybe.
My best friend and I went to a booksale on Box Day. I don't remember where we got the refrigerator carton lid, but they told us, yes, that's just one box all right. We filled it up for three dollars. A mountain of books apiece. Of COURSE that was the day that I got a flat tire going home, and had to take all those books back out of the trunk to get to the spare.
I remember when the complete dictionary took up a whole, ceiling to wall bookshelf.
I’ll be looking for individual volumes hanging out at the bookstore or library sale. You gotta have the words on paper, man. Keep ‘em in the van for traffic jams. Take one on the airplane. The OED is *it*.
LISTER: Kryten, what you doing, man?
KRYTEN: I've just repaired the toaster, Sir. Well, I've nearly repaired the toaster.
LISTER: Oh NO, man! Dismantle him! You don't know what the little bleeder's like!
KRYTEN: Well, I've read all the documentation, Sir. He's simply a talking alarm clock who provides his owner with early morning toast and light conversation.
LISTER: Not this one. This one's mental!
KRYTEN: Sir?
LISTER: He's defective. He wants everyone to eat toast ALL OF THE TIME. He's obsessed with it. And if you don't want to eat, like, four hundreds rounds of toast EVERY HOUR, he throws a major wobbly. That's what caused the accident in the first place.
KRYTEN: What accident?
LISTER: The accident involving me, the toaster, the waste disposal and the fourteen pound lump-hammer.
KRYTEN: That explains why he was down in the garbage hold in three thousand separate pieces.
LISTER: Another thing. He always says "Howdy doodly do." Drives you spare. I mean, what the smeg does "Howdy doodly do" mean?
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