The most offensive part is the monthly price point. What goo between the ears business idiot convinced these people they could charge more than a Netflix (+ ads) subscription for the dictionary? You could literally buy a brand new one and set it on fire every month for that cost. Fucking leeches.
You couldn’t do that, OED is so massive they’re not even printing it anymore. Old sets are on Amazon for $1000+
It’s weird to talk about “the dictionary”, there’s no single default dictionary, they’re all different and this is a dictionary for specialists. It’s a historical dictionary, so it covers words and their usage from up to a millenium ago (although IIRC it doesn’t include words that haven’t survived into Modern English, so 400-ish years ago).
Oxford sells abridged dictionaries for under $10. 99% of people aren’t using it for 20 encyclopedias worth of etymological research, they’re using it to figure out how to spell a word or what it means.
Exactly, so why all the fuss about the inaccessibility of OED? Most people don’t need OED in particular, spellings and most relevant meanings can be checked in normal smaller dictionaries (although these days autocorrect solves most spelling problems before people would even think of checking a dictionary, and people even treat Google as a dictionary because it provides definitions when needed).
Not that the pricing isn’t awful and likely overblown, but that’s a different story.
so why all the fuss about the inaccessibility of OED?
Because the OED is the creme of the crop for dictionaries, particularly the SOED has some of the most well put together definitions of any dictionary for casual lookup. Because the 1200$ paywall they put behind the physical editions was always bullshit. Because they no longer have legitimate ways of purchacing a cheaper local digital copy when one was available before is bullshit.
Sure, wiktionary or webster might have an entry for the word but if you do side by side comparisions betweeen dictionary theyre mid compared to OED/SOED. If your reaching for one the logic should be that you want the best/most accurate and descriptive one possible, no?
I genuinely believe that universities have at least a moral obligation (HA!) to provide free public services that better humanity. These are places of education subsidized and given tax breaks by the government for gods sake, yet theyre so corrupt from the rich fucks that run them like a for-profit corporation.
I would make an argument that free access to the highest quality dictionaries thats the gold standard for scholarly reference and similar such materials should be closer to a digital right than anything. In a better world academia pricing structures get fucked, knowledge becomes truly open through digital online and local reference resources without DRM.
Of course, thats a pipe dream. So instead, I simply ask for the option of an updated CD rom to be released as a possible purchacing option in a DRM free format. You know, like they already did years ago.
Because the 1200$ paywall they put behind the physical editions
From what I understood, that’s the price of used copies of the second edition these days, not how much it cost when it was actually published. I have no idea how I could estimate what’s the objectively appropriate price considering the funding, expenses and the production costs of such a dictionary, and I think neither do you.
particularly the SOED has some of the most well put together definitions of any dictionary for casual lookup
So you want SOED, not OED. SOED doesn’t cost $100 a year, it’s available as an Android app that costs a one-time $30 payment.
If your reaching for one the logic should be that you want the best/most accurate and descriptive one possible, no?
Not necessarily. OED’s entries can be so massive they’re difficult to navigate and follow, and the length of the definition doesn’t necessarily say much about its accuracy. The definitions in ODE and SOED are frequently more clear, perfectly adequate and faster to access and read through, e.g. if you’re reading Shakespeare or Milton and just want to quickly find the word’s meaning without all the additional scholarly apparatus distracting you. At least, such is my experience using dictionaries.
I strongly agree both with the idea that science should be freely available, and that it should be available as a local copy (PDFs, etc.). I also made my opinion on academic pricings in general and OED’s price in particular clear in one of the previous comments. I know full well that they’re not the only option, even in a capitalist society (many continental European academic institutions and Academies publish their major dictionaries, comparable in complexity to OED, online for free). The only thing I disagree with is singling out OED as if it’s doing something particularly unprecedentant and almost heinous.
They likely don’t want to publish it on CD or similar locally available (non-online) format because it’d easily get pirated. But, I say, maybe people should organise and pirate the existing database themselves.
The most offensive part is the monthly price point. What goo between the ears business idiot convinced these people they could charge more than a Netflix (+ ads) subscription for the dictionary? You could literally buy a brand new one and set it on fire every month for that cost. Fucking leeches.
You couldn’t do that, OED is so massive they’re not even printing it anymore. Old sets are on Amazon for $1000+
It’s weird to talk about “the dictionary”, there’s no single default dictionary, they’re all different and this is a dictionary for specialists. It’s a historical dictionary, so it covers words and their usage from up to a millenium ago (although IIRC it doesn’t include words that haven’t survived into Modern English, so 400-ish years ago).
Oxford sells abridged dictionaries for under $10. 99% of people aren’t using it for 20 encyclopedias worth of etymological research, they’re using it to figure out how to spell a word or what it means.
Exactly, so why all the fuss about the inaccessibility of OED? Most people don’t need OED in particular, spellings and most relevant meanings can be checked in normal smaller dictionaries (although these days autocorrect solves most spelling problems before people would even think of checking a dictionary, and people even treat Google as a dictionary because it provides definitions when needed).
Not that the pricing isn’t awful and likely overblown, but that’s a different story.
Because the OED is the creme of the crop for dictionaries, particularly the SOED has some of the most well put together definitions of any dictionary for casual lookup. Because the 1200$ paywall they put behind the physical editions was always bullshit. Because they no longer have legitimate ways of purchacing a cheaper local digital copy when one was available before is bullshit.
Sure, wiktionary or webster might have an entry for the word but if you do side by side comparisions betweeen dictionary theyre mid compared to OED/SOED. If your reaching for one the logic should be that you want the best/most accurate and descriptive one possible, no?
I genuinely believe that universities have at least a moral obligation (HA!) to provide free public services that better humanity. These are places of education subsidized and given tax breaks by the government for gods sake, yet theyre so corrupt from the rich fucks that run them like a for-profit corporation.
I would make an argument that free access to the highest quality dictionaries thats the gold standard for scholarly reference and similar such materials should be closer to a digital right than anything. In a better world academia pricing structures get fucked, knowledge becomes truly open through digital online and local reference resources without DRM.
Of course, thats a pipe dream. So instead, I simply ask for the option of an updated CD rom to be released as a possible purchacing option in a DRM free format. You know, like they already did years ago.
From what I understood, that’s the price of used copies of the second edition these days, not how much it cost when it was actually published. I have no idea how I could estimate what’s the objectively appropriate price considering the funding, expenses and the production costs of such a dictionary, and I think neither do you.
So you want SOED, not OED. SOED doesn’t cost $100 a year, it’s available as an Android app that costs a one-time $30 payment.
Not necessarily. OED’s entries can be so massive they’re difficult to navigate and follow, and the length of the definition doesn’t necessarily say much about its accuracy. The definitions in ODE and SOED are frequently more clear, perfectly adequate and faster to access and read through, e.g. if you’re reading Shakespeare or Milton and just want to quickly find the word’s meaning without all the additional scholarly apparatus distracting you. At least, such is my experience using dictionaries.
I strongly agree both with the idea that science should be freely available, and that it should be available as a local copy (PDFs, etc.). I also made my opinion on academic pricings in general and OED’s price in particular clear in one of the previous comments. I know full well that they’re not the only option, even in a capitalist society (many continental European academic institutions and Academies publish their major dictionaries, comparable in complexity to OED, online for free). The only thing I disagree with is singling out OED as if it’s doing something particularly unprecedentant and almost heinous.
They likely don’t want to publish it on CD or similar locally available (non-online) format because it’d easily get pirated. But, I say, maybe people should organise and pirate the existing database themselves.