The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) full access

[Little.Egret]

https://public.oed.com/help/how-to-subscribe/

{OUP} are pleased to offer annual individual OED subscriptions at a reduced rate of $90 in the US (usually $295) or £90 for the Rest of the World (usually £215) until 31st July 2019.

For this annual rate, you’ll have full unrestricted access to the OED Online – including quarterly updates!

Residents of Britain mostly have the same access using their local library card name and number. Surrey###### for me.

[Little.Egret]

Originally Posted by Little.Egret

https://public.oed.com/help/how-to-subscribe/


Residents of Britain mostly have the same access using their local library card name and number. Surrey###### for me.

But not any longer for residents of Dundee, Scotland.

https://www.thecourier.co.uk/fp/news...ies-in-dundee/

"A Leisure & Culture Dundee spokesperson said: “Following a review of online resource provision, the subscription to Oxford University Press Online was not renewed in February 2019."

[GtrsRGr8]

Originally Posted by Little.Egret

https://public.oed.com/help/how-to-subscribe/

{OUP} are pleased to offer annual individual OED subscriptions at a reduced rate of $90 in the US (usually $295) or £90 for the Rest of the World (usually £215) until 31st July 2019.

For this annual rate, you’ll have full unrestricted access to the OED Online – including quarterly updates!

Residents of Britain mostly have the same access using their local library card name and number. Surrey###### for me.

Why would any individual want to own the OED? I know of only two people who own sets.

One is a dynamic public speaker who is a real wordsmith. I doubt that even he owns a very recent edition--I don't have any idea how much a hard copy of the set would currently cost, but I'm sure that it "don't come cheap." And what conceivable need would even a wordsmith have for the OED? What would he or she find in it, that he or she couldn't find in a good, comprehensive desk dictionary?

That fact that Oxford issues quarterly updates tells you how rapidly the OED goes out of date. More money to have to spend.

The other person is me. Yes, that's right, me. Yours truly. I acquired a used set for nearly nothing when I was in the used book business about 10-15 years ago. I never could sell it, even though I had it marked with a very cheap price. I'm still looking for a good way to unload it on (er . . . I mean, "sell it to") someone who could get some good out of it.

The set that I've got constitutes two, enormous volumes. Even at that, the type is almost infinitesimally small (with that edition, at least, Oxford furnished a magnifying glass).

[issybird]

Originally Posted by GtrsRGr8

The set that I've got constitutes two, enormous volumes. Even at that, the type is almost infinitesimally small (with that edition, at least, Oxford furnished a magnifying glass).

I suspect there are a lot of those out there. I've still got mine. It was a very popular sign-on bonus for the Book-of-the-Month Club. Granted, that was decades ago, but it's the type of thing that hangs around gathering dust, if only because of the effort involved in getting rid of something so massive.

The magnifying glass is very handy, however; it lives next to my armchair and gets daily use.

[GtrsRGr8]

Originally Posted by issybird

I suspect there are a lot of those out there. I've still got mine. It was a very popular sign-on bonus for the Book-of-the-Month Club. Granted, that was decades ago, but it's the type of thing that hangs around gathering dust, if only because of the effort involved in getting rid of something so massive.

The magnifying glass is very handy, however; it lives next to my armchair and gets daily use.

I knew that the set originally included a magnifying glass, from viewing listings for used sets on Bookfinder.com, most likely. Mine was sans a magnifying glass. No biggie.

I live (just barely) "in the county," and we can burn outdoors almost anything but household trash. I've made up my mind that my set of OED is going to have its end through that means--and soon.

Certainly one advantage of a subscription to the digital OED is that you don't have to come up with some way of disposing of it.

Please indulge me one quick story. It comes from an eminent history professor friend of mine, David Edwin Harrell (there's a stub at the English-language Wikipedia about him), from whom I learned about the dynamic public speaker who owns a set of the OED. At the same time that he told a group of us about that, he also mentioned that he knew of no one else who owned a set. Imagine that--of all of the colleagues and other intellectual-types that he has been associated with over his (long) career, he knew of none of them who owned a set!

Maybe the availability of a digital subscription, with a very reasonable (IMHO) current price now of $90 in the U.S., will spur some people to buy the subscription. I'm afraid that I'm going to be a hold out.

[mbovenka]

I own a Compact OED as well (the latest, single-volume edition). I even own the three Additions; my printed OED is as up-to-date as it gets

[pwalker8]

I have the DVD that OED put out a while back. Kind of worthless now since it has DRM and they didn't keep updating it. I also have a digital subscription that I purchased a couple of months ago. As for who would own one, I would think that anyone who is interested in words and their history would.

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by issybird

I suspect there are a lot of those out there. I've still got mine. It was a very popular sign-on bonus for the Book-of-the-Month Club. ...

I had one of these I got from the Book Club. I gave it to my dad (I think he still has it). I'm thinking of picking up another used one on eBay (they're about $30 with shipping). $90 a year for access to an electronic edition? And that's the sale price? I'm WAY too cheap for that. I still have my Websters New International Unabridged Dictionary (1913, India Paper, so it was much thinner than the regular paper version). This is like the one I pored over when I was a kid (its in storage in TX right now). Fortunately you can go to dict.org and use that one online and free at any time.

[Manabi]

Originally Posted by rcentros

Fortunately you can go to dict.org and use that one online and free at any time.

I actually have search shortcuts setup for that, I can simply type in "dict word-to-lookup," hit enter and get a result. Same thing for thesaurus.com, just with "ths". It's insanely useful.

[degustibus]

I have the two volume shelved, gathering dust still have the magnifying glass--not the box. I also bought the OED on DVD & the updated one -- the first only worked on WinME as I recall, the updated one had to use either Vista or Win2000, & had to keep it in the DVD tray.

I could move he first edition from computer to computer by setting up a virtual OS.

I spent a of time browsing, looking at etymologies and historical quotations, thank you James Murray & OUP. (There are a couple of pretty good histories of the OED, truly a grand undertaking by a widespread community of logophiles. Also a movie now based on the Winchester book, The Professor and he Madman.)

[GtrsRGr8]

Originally Posted by mbovenka

I own a Compact OED as well (the latest, single-volume edition). I even own the three Additions; my printed OED is as up-to-date as it gets

I'm impressed.

Would you mind sharing with us how often you use it?

Does compact mean that it is abridged? My impression has been that one of the things that makes the OED the OED is that it is not, and never is, abridged.

[AnotherCat]

I have the Version 4 of the CD-ROM Second Edition of the full OED which was published in 2009. It installs on the hard drive unlike (all??) earlier versions. It seems to have entries and draft entries that I've noticed up until late 2008 at least. It was the last CD-ROM version published.

It has a search capability and apart from a slightly clunky user interface it is as easy to use as other electronic dictionaries, so it is used all the time as my main dictionary.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by GtrsRGr8

The set that I've got constitutes two, enormous volumes. Even at that, the type is almost infinitesimally small (with that edition, at least, Oxford furnished a magnifying glass).

That's not the OED; it's the edition called the "Shorter Oxford Dictionary". I also have it, and it's the most comprehensive Oxford English dictionary still available in print. When the OED was printed (it no longer is), it consisted of 20 volumes, each as large as the two that we own.

[mbovenka]

Originally Posted by HarryT

That's not the OED; it's the edition called the "Shorter Oxford Dictionary".

Yes it is, Harry. It's the older version of the Compact OED he is talking about. That has two volumes with 2 x reduced print (4 original OED pages per physical page).

The Shorter Oxford also has two volumes, but it's not the same.

[mbovenka]

Originally Posted by GtrsRGr8

I'm impressed.

Would you mind sharing with us how often you use it?

Does compact mean that it is abridged? My impression has been that one of the things that makes the OED the OED is that it is not, and never is, abridged.

To be honest, I don't use it very often. It's too cumbersome for that. But it's great to be able to fall back on it now and again.

It's called 'Compact' not because it's abridged, but because it's not as large physically as the the full 20-volume set. That's not saying much, though; at 9 original pages (3 x reduced) per physical page, it's still a huge book...