"The next edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, the word reference bible of the English language, may never appear in print and instead be accessible only online, its publisher said ... ." {Source: AP via Google News.}
Egad!!!
The 20-volume OED is sitting here in the reference shelf about fifteen steps away from where I'm writing this to you. It is covered in dust and cannot be not shelved conveniently without a custom case. I'm sure that's the way it is in most public libraries.
Still, not having access to one somewhere disturbs me a little. You can open one of these volumes, look up the word you want and spend the rest of the day reading about that word and all the other words related to it or near it. While that doesn't sound like fun to most, to me it was a paradise I indulged in virtually every rainy Saturday in college. OK, I wore out after an hour or so, but still, it was great fun.
I'd be sorry to see the third edition never be printed for many reasons, but maybe that's the way it needs to be. (Or ... in a special use all-in-one touchscreen computer? iDic ... tionary. *puts fist under chin and looks pensive*)
How does this relate to The Top Ten? While I was in college those many years ago, I ran across a mention somewhere of how Robert Browning used to buy dictionaries -- to read. That's right -- he apparently would start at A and read through Z, then sometime later go out and buy another one and do it again. And again.
If you wanted to acquaint yourself with the history of your language, that's what you had to do -- before OED, that is. That's why some kind of pagilinear (I made that word up, I think.) format is important to maintain somehow.
You just never know what you'll learn looking up something else. (As I learned from Sydney Harris, at least once a week!)
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