Comment by NeedMoreTea | Hacker News Reader

Comment by NeedMoreTea | Hacker News Reader

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Yet I still quite regularly refer to our Shorter Oxford (3 - 4k A4 pages). Usually after failing to get a correct or adequate answer online. It gives far more definitions, etymology and usage than any and every online resource. For dictionaries, the internet has no depth, just a barely scratched surface. Somewhat equivalent to a simplified school or pocket dictionary - at best.

I've probably spent as much time down paper encyclopedia rabbit holes as Wikipedia. Both have their pluses which can't be easily replicated in the other. Same for dictionaries.

Something that came up in a recent discussion on Encarta: I have a century old encyclopedia set - the fact it is not constantly updated makes it a fascinating piece of history. Sometimes with better - manual - shortcut ways of calculating that I never heard of in my schooling, and a glimpse of skills that have declined. Reading about steam engines while they were still cutting edge, etc. I've learnt all sorts of little bits of history none of the many history books I read and Wikipedia time I've spent have ever got near.

Having a snapshot is as useful, but differently useful, to having an always updated resource.

> It gives far more definitions, etymology and usage than any and every online resource.

But the full Oxford is online, including all the notes they use to produce it like sources. That’s far broader and deeper than your shorter edition.

That needs a subscription, does it not? What is available are some of the full entries for just a small selection of the words.

e.g. the word of the day on oed.com is "quarterstaff" which gives the full OED entry, but type or click "quartet" or the other linked words, then you're returned to the homepage, and a subscriber login pops up. There's a £90 instead of £200 for a year's personal sub offer on the front page too.

I can buy the Compact Oxford for that. After seeing mention in this thread of its tiny price on Ebay, and a quick search, I may very well spend £20 or £30. :)

It’s still ‘online’ even if you need a subscription!

And you probably have a full access subscription anyway, through your local public library, or maybe your alma mater if you have one, or maybe your employer if it’s a large knowledge organisation.

So

pull out dictionarybout of shelf, look up word

Vs

Find out which institution I belong to has access to oed (which you’re bound to forget unless you’re in the word smithing business and use oed every day) .

Figure out what contorted method this institution used to log in

Remember your usr / password

Reset usr/ password

Figure out what combination of special characters your institution requires for your password

Look up word

Doesn’t support Firefox/ safari!

Fire up chrome

What are the special characters for the password again?

Reset password, etc

I just went on vacation. As I’m heading out I grab my mirrorless digital camera. Then I remember I’ll need the charger. And the SD card is in the card reader upstairs.

So I said, “f*it”, grabbed a handful film and my OM-1.

...but I didn’t argue it was easier or faster.

I said it was a deeper resource available online. And it is!

Sometimes i think people here really forget something like 200£/year ($324 here) really does make it inaccessible to some people. I've got a copy of the Oxford dictionary I picked up for less than $20 at a used book store. Over $300/year for the same thing really is not an expense I can afford for the luxury of a dictionary.

Oh, I totally wouldn't recommend paying the subscription (those to whom it is professionally worthwhile won't be seeking my recommendation in the first place). But a significant chunk of the UK population have free access because their local public library system subscribes. That's even cheaper than a secondhand paper dictionary...

> i think people here really forget something like 200£/year ($324 here) really does make it inaccessible to some people

You can go into a public library in most western countries and access it for free.

It's not that it's unaffordable, it's the subscription as "full product cost, every year". I object to the sheer greed of that pricing model. I wouldn't buy a Compact Oxford book set every year, just as I wouldn't buy MS Office every time. That's the price that counts as it's the same content as the full multiple volume OED without the extra paper and bindings. Besides, Office used to get updated every 3-5 years, not annually. Online as means for 500% price increase isn't something I'll ever support, even if I'm easily able. :)

Much as I might like access to the full thing, the book might last me in the home 10-30 years, or life. Now were the sub £20-£30 a year I may well have, while the kids were at school...

The difference is a matter of getting used to it.

The free-via-local-UK-public-library access is actually pretty pain-free -- you just click the 'sign in' button, enter your library card number, possibly click a link to tell it which particular local library the card is for, and that's it. There is no password. It's worked in Firefox since forever, and I'm sure it will work in Safari too. It then remembers you're signed in for a bit, and next time around it's even easier because your web browser remembers the library card number and can fill in the field for you.

It's a great resource to have handy. Personally I set Firefox up with a search bookmark so I can just type 'oed wombat' to look up 'wombat'; if you're not signed in it goes through a quick fill-in-the-library-card-number interstitial and then you're straight at the definition.

Interesting. I wasn't aware I could get home access via our library membership. I guess I just assumed I'd have to either visit library, or "virtually" borrow it like with CDs and audiobooks.

Something to look into, soon. Thanks!

I have both the the full and the shorter (the New Shorter in my case) and I've found that I prefer the shorter over both the full Oxford (which I have online) and things like the publicly available MW. It's not a simple abbreviated edition of the full thing.

The full Oxford is a marvellous thing, but in the past decades, the New Shorter has grown to be what I reach for first.

> I have a century old encyclopedia set - the fact it is not constantly updated makes it a fascinating piece of history.

Absolutely! I've got a German encyclopaedia from the beginning of the 20th century, and looking up societal terms is fascinating.

"Feminism" is "female behaviour by men", and only the secondary meaning references the women's movement.

"Women's question" is about the quest to give those rights to women that are "according to their their ability and potential".

Aye, some of the implicit societal assumptions are rather hard to read, or comical from today's perspective. From the era when Western confidence was probably at its height, there's a presumption in everything that Christianity, Western society and values are the right ones. That empire is a force for good - but quietly not mentioning both sides, or the deprivation caused, and this right after the scramble for Africa. Though King Leopold's "Free" Congo is a catalogue of atrocity, that was infamous even back at the height of Empire building.

Yet see current stories on the Arctic and competing moves to develop and claim it, and it doesn't seem so very different, just who's playing has changed.

Then there's the extensive coverage of anachronisms that have changed hugely or vanished; like the hierarchy of flowers, class, the importance of the King's English (received pronunciation), obsolete medical treatments, crime and punishment and so on.

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