The Compact Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, 2 Vols ... by Herbert Coleridge

From its charming drawer that contains the very necessary magnifying glass to its micro font to its hernia-inducing weight, this treasure trove of words has come to feel like an old friend. One of those loved possessions is my 1971 Compact Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary. The few things that I do own, I treasure with an irrational devotion. Because of this, my belongings are pretty sparse. See, I have a real phobia of the suffocating feeling of owning too many things. But I felt compelled to write a review (spoiler-free). By a process of photoreduction four pages from the original work appear on each page of the Compact edition & both versions include a magnifying glass that makes the reduced type easily readable.I felt ridiculous marking this as 'read' because of course I haven't read it. American English is the greatest influence on English everywhere.' Volume 3 of the Compact is available in its own jndividual slipcase or combined with Volumes 1-2 in one slipcase. As editor Robert Burchfield explains it, 'The center of gravity for the English language is no longer Britain. The wealth of Americanisms in the Supplement also reflects a new direction for the dictionary. Words like G-man, yuppie, user-friendly, test-tube baby & Zen Buddhism rub shoulders with the most recent additions to subjects like law, medicine & engineering. It includes business terms, 'computerese,' space-age terminology, colloquialisms & coinages by modern authors ranging from Wm Faulkner & Virginia Woolf to Gore Vidal & Erica Jong. The Supplement, called the 'book of the century' by Phillip Howard in the London Times, contains all the new words that have come into use during the 20th century & includes as well the countless new meanings that have been applied to older words-over 69,000 entries altogether. So the vital addendum, which transforms the OED into an indispensable tool for the 80s, will be made available for the first time in this convenient format. Now, with their completion in '86, all four volumes are being produced in a single micrographically reproduced volume to be called Volume 3 of the Compact OED.

But the Compact did not contain the Supplements to the OED which have been appearing at regular intervals since '72. Newsweek hailed the achievement 'a brilliant success,' while the NY Times declared that the Compact was 'something of a miracle.easier to work with than the original.an extraordinary bargain.' Since then it has sold over 330,000 copies in the USA alone. In 1971 the Compact Oxford English Dictionary made publishing & printing history by ingeniously reducing the 13 volumes of the OED to two, without losing one word of the original.

The Compact Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, 2 Vols ... by Herbert Coleridge