No more printed Oxford English Dictionary?

CC photo by Flickr user thrig

Sad news for bibliophiles: The Oxford English Dictionary as we know it may never be printed (in full) again. Nigel Portwood, the CEO of the Oxford University Press, told the Sunday Times (behind a pay-wall, damn you Murdoch), via the Telegraph:

“The print dictionary market is just disappearing, it is falling away by tens of per cent a year,” Nigel Portwood, the chief executive of OUP, told the Sunday Times. Asked if he thought the third edition would be printed, he said: “I don’t think so.”

The current printed dictionary, the second edition, which was released in 1989, comes in at 20 volumes: over 21,000 pages of definitions, usages, spellings, pronunciations and histories. Electronically, though, the whole thing comes in at a scant 540 megabytes, which would fit easily on just one CD-ROM (roughly five-and-a-half of them would fit on one of the new Kindles).

The third edition will likely find its way to some kind of internet subscription service. After 21 years of work, the 80 lexicographers working on the revision have completed only entries “A” through “Rococoesque,” (What do you mean, “rococoesque” isn’t in your dictionary, Firefox?) a rate of 0.83 letters per year. So, who knows if it’s even relevant news now. Indeed, the Oxford University Press quickly released a response to outcries that some folks’ favorite tome would be discontinued:

No decision has yet been made on the format of the third edition. It is likely to be more than a decade before the full edition is published, and a decision on format will be taken at that point.

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