It weighs in at more than 130 pounds, but the authoritative guide to the English language, the Oxford English Dictionary, may eventually slim down to nothing. Oxford University Press, the publisher, said Sunday so many people prefer to look up words using its online product that it's uncertain whether the 126-year-old dictionary's next edition will be printed on paper at all. The dictionary was first published in parts starting in 1884. It kept growing for decades until the complete text went out in 1928. It was the first comprehensive English dictionary since Samuel Johnson's "A Dictionary of the English Language" was published in 1755, and has since evolved to become the accepted authority on the meaning and history of words. The version users now consult — the second edition — has 291,500 entries, plus 2.4 million quotations as sources. Unlike shorter printed versions such as the single-volume Oxford Dictionary of English, it doesn't track current usage. A team of 80 lexicographers are preparing the third edition of the dictionary, which is just one-quarter finished. Oxford University Press hasn't yet given a date for when the third edition will be ready. In December, the online version will be relaunched to include a historical thesaurus to make cross-referencing easier. Extracts from Yahoo News & Print Monthly Magazine
Speaking in an interview with the Sunday Times newspaper, chief executive of Oxford University Press Nigel Portwood commented: “The print dictionary market is just disappearing, it is falling away by tens of percent a year.” While no formal decision has been taken on the format of the third edition, when Portwood was asked if he believed it would appear in print, he replied: “I don’t think so.”