Comment by Oxford English Dictionary exec sparks premature obituaries
It’s one of those stories that say a lot less than the headlines would lead a casual reader to believe. The CEO of Oxford University Press makes an obvious comment about the future of the Oxford English Dictionary and print reapers start reaching for the shovels again.
“Oxford English Dictionary set to suffer traditional print demise?”
“It may be the end for printed dictionaries“
“Is This the End of Printed Dictionaries?”
Oh, my, does this mean the dictionary on my desk or in your bookcase will need to be handed down parent to child lest future generations be deprived of these weighty tomes? Will “The American Heritage dic.tion.ary of THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE” I own become a collectable?
No. It means merely that the next encyclopedic version of the Oxford English Dictionary may or may not include a print version.
From a story in The Guardian:
Publishers of the Oxford English Dictionary have confirmed that the third edition may never appear in print. A team of 80 lexicographers began working on it following the publication of the second edition in 1989. It is 28% finished. In comments to a Sunday newspaper, Nigel Portwood, chief executive of Oxford University Press, which owns the dictionary, said: “The print dictionary market is just disappearing. It is falling away by tens of percent a year.” Asked if he thought the third edition would appear in printed format, he said: “I don’t think so.” However, an OUP spokeswoman said no decision had been made.
They’ve been toiling on it for 21 years, have finished less than a third of the work, and it’s estimated that completion remains more than a decade in the future. So is there any wonder that plans for taking the thing to market have yet to be set in stone.
Of even greater importance, however, is understanding what’s being discussed here (a point lost in many of the headlines and snap opinion pieces): We’re not talking about a dictionary, we’re talking about a big honking 20-volume set of reference dictionaries, more than 22,000 pages when last assembled and certain to be quite a few more next time.
Oh, and it costs a thousand bucks, which means it is bought primarily by libraries and schools. (The online version is $295 a year.)
You mean that might not be available in print 10 or 20 years from now? … Get out.
While neither the story nor the media overreaction surprised me, they did get me thinking about the dictionary on my desk and the fact that, yes, I still do use it every now and then. I’m not exactly sure why, though. Best I can recollect is that I turn to it when truly flummoxed as to how spell a particular word, so baffled, in fact, that search engines and online dictionaries rebuff my clumsy inquiries. Scanning the dead-tree pages has helped extricate me from these predicaments now and then. I’ll also turn to the hard copy when the Internet gives me a dissatisfying answer or the impression that it’s not really trying hard today.
Would I buy another one? No. Do I see enough need to constitute an enduring market? Yes … at least for now.
How about you folks? Still use an ordinary print dictionary? And, if so, why?
