The Oxford English Dictionary Additions: 3 Volume Set [Hardcover]

Oxford University Press (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 11, 1998 | ISBN-10: 0195214560 | ISBN-13: 978-0195214567

This is a series of three volumes supplementing the acclaimed Second Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary. Each volume contains 3,000 new words and meanings presented in the style of the OED. These represent a variety of work-in-progress, covering words and meanings that have recently entered the language, as well as the results of further research on items already included in the Dictionary. With over 12,000 illustrative quotations showing the evolution of each word or meaning, these volumes are not only a testimony to the continual development of our living language, but also make compelling browsing.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"These volumes reflect not only the richness and diversity of the English language, but also its continually evolving nature." --Reference Books Bulletin

Product Details

• Hardcover: 1192 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (June 11, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0195214560
• ISBN-13: 978-0195214567
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.3 x 3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,006,670 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars The Authoritative (But Awkward) (Yet Only) Way to Complete the OED2, January 5, 2012

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Megarat "a well-intended critic" (Squirt Island, USA, Earth) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: The Oxford English Dictionary Additions: 3 Volume Set (Hardcover)

Okay, so here's the deal: Oxford University Press released the print edition of the OED2 (Oxford English Dictionary, second edition) in 1989. This dictionary -- printed in full at twenty volumes -- has received much acclaim and has generally been regarded as the unimpeachable authority on the English language.

Oxford have been at work on the third edition (OED3) ever since, although it is proving to be an enormous undertaking. Depending on which source you believe, the third edition of the OED is estimated to be completed sometime after 2035, and will constitute over 50 volumes in length. Which is to say that, considering the rate of technological advancement (and the escalating prices of fuel and other resources), there probably won't be a print edition of the OED3. But who knows, maybe Oxford will release a Nano-Compact Edition where the pages are typeset dot-matrix style with individual xenon atoms and can only be read with the included scanning electron microscope.

In the interregnum between 1989 and the release of the OED3, Oxford has been (and will continue to be) busy releasing electronic and other/abridged versions of the OED (e.g., "The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary"), but they didn't want to abandon the OED2 altogether. Dictionary publishers don't want their flagship products to get outdated, so it's common for them to make addenda to their dictionaries after the release of a major edition, to include new/updated entries and remedy errors. That said, even with the advent of computerized publishing, seamlessly incorporating addenda to a printed work that spans thousands of pages (and in the case of the OED2, a score of volumes) isn't economically tractable.

The solution employed by many major dictionary publishers (e.g., Merriam-Webster, Random House) is to release a new printing of the dictionary, which contains a preceding or concluding section that incorporates the addenda. This way the main body of the dictionary text stays the same, but the addenda will get updated over time with each successive printing.

Unfortunately, the logic behind this solution puts the burden on the reader, as they are required to look through two dictionaries instead of one. In theory, if a reader were to be thorough, they would need to look up a definition in both the main body of the dictionary text, and then again in the addenda, to see if any additions or revisions have taken place.

Oxford embraced a similar solution, but instead of forcing their customers to buy an entirely all-new printing of the dictionary (for obvious reasons), they've printed the addenda separately. This is the product you're looking at right now. There are three volumes of addenda in total: two volumes were published in 1993, and the third in 1997. Oxford has said that this is the end of the road, that no further volumes will be published. Each of these three volumes have entries from A-Z, and the only attempt to aggregate their contents are with the collective indices that are found at the ends of Volumes 2 and 3.

While I applaud the efforts to keep this great dictionary up to date, I can't endorse the method that Oxford has employed, nor the solution that gets imposed on the reader. To get a thorough definition, the reader must: (a) look up the definition in the main body of the dictionary; then (b) look up the word of interest in the index of Volume 3 of the Additions Series; and then (c) look up any new/supplemental definitions that are listed in one (or, in some cases, more) of the three volumes.

(For comparison, with the printed version of the OED's first edition (OED1), the additions (called "Supplements") were published as four volumes, all in alphabetical order. So, e.g., if your word of interest began with a letter between "H" and "O", then you knew to look in Volume 2. Even better, the OED1's Compact Edition of the supplements were conveniently printed in one volume, of the same physical size as the rest. Alas, we have neither of those luxuries here.)

So, I own these addenda. And I suppose that I'm happy to own them, as the information they contain is top-notch and worthy of the rest of the dictionary. But yet I almost never use them. The OED2, without addenda, typically serves me just fine, and when it doesn't, I usually eschew the inconvenience of referencing the addenda and resort to other dictionaries altogether (in order: W2, W3, then AHD5). I find that this yields better results.

As such, I cannot recommend the purchase of this Additions Series, except as a capstone for the completist, to fill out what will probably be the final print edition of the grandest dictionary of the English language.

Even if you buy these addenda just to complete the set, don't expect them to look complementary on the shelf, as the addenda volumes are of a different size than the rest of the dictionary. The standard OED2 volumes are large, with a height of 12.25" and a width of 9.5", and the addenda volumes are comparatively tiny, at 9.5" high and 6.5" wide (and about one inch thick apiece). I know it's superficial, but there's something unsatisfying about this, as it implies that the addenda were just an awkward, bolt-on afterthought.

It's probably not to Oxford's financial advantage, but I wish they would consolidate these three volumes into a single alphabetically organized volume, being the same size as the rest of the dictionary. This would mean that the addenda (a) would require half the shelf space, and (b) be less cumbersome to use. Plus it would have the aesthetic feature of (c) looking nicely complementary when shelved next to the rest of the dictionary. I would give five stars for such an addenda, and happily re-spend the money to acquire it. Most importantly, I would probably actually use it.

2 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars OED 3 Vol. Additions, January 8, 2011

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Ardvark - See all my reviews

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This review is from: The Oxford English Dictionary Additions: 3 Volume Set (Hardcover)

It was a gift to my wife to complete the 20 Vol. set I bought her. She seems quite pleased with all of the bboks!

5 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars learning par-excellence, September 12, 2009

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J. Gregory Roberts (TN, US) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Oxford English Dictionary Additions: 3 Volume Set (Hardcover)

With the rampant, seemingly inexorable pace of globalization, it is critical for and, even contingent upon, the individual to gain insight into what links each of us to one another. What informs our world and possesses the real potential to destroy its very fabric is the written word. Ergo, the OED, given its exhaustive etymologies and insight to History's transcribed verbiage, facilitates one's work to strive for what Diogenes of Sinope coined "cosmopolitan," that is 'citizen of the world'.