Maud Newton, literary femme fatale and all-around delight, blogs (and twitters! how progressive) from the 80th anniversary of the Oxford English Dictionary.
Biggest development? The third edition of the 20-volume set of the Oxford English Dictionary will also be its last! After publication of “the first comprehensive and up-to-date edition of the OED in one alphabetical sequence since the original edition of 1928″, the OED will (figuratively) close all 20 of its covers and move on to a bigger and brighter future as an internet-only text.
My prediction: the next groundbreaking dictionary to box up its dusty, leather cover in favor of a more hip internet form will be the Urban Dictionary. Oh, wait…
Is the OED’s move to an exclusively electronic form good or bad? Will this spell the end of civilization’s erudite ability to trace the exact diachronous history of a word? Or simply the proletarianization of mankind’s intelligence? You decide.
