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Concise Oxford English Dictionary (Concise Dictionary) ( Oxford University Press, USA )
Release Date: 2004-10-07
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List Price: $32.95
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Product Description
The Concise Oxford English Dictionary is the most popular dictionary of its kind around the world and is noted for its clear, concise definitions as well as its comprehensive and authoritative coverage of the vocabulary of the English-speaking world. Authoritative and up to date, this eleventh edition of the Concise Oxford English Dictionary contains over 240,000 words, phrases, and definitions, including 900 new words. It offers rich vocabulary coverage, with full treatment of World English, rare, historical, and archaic terms, as well as scientific and technical vocabulary, and provides hundreds of helpful notes on grammar and usage.
New to this edition is a fascinating Word Histories feature, detailing the origins and development of 100 words, such as accolade and candid. This dictionary contains full appendices on topics such as alphabets, currencies, electronic English, and the registers of language, from formal to slang, plus a useful Guide to Good English with advice on grammar, punctuation, and spelling.
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Good new, bad news ( majjick )
Needing a supplement to my aging 1987 Webster, and in particular one reliably giving British usage, I originally bought the Cambridge International Dictionary of English. It's an excellent dictionary, in fact I would say *the* dictionary, for non-native speakers; the entries, explanations and descriptions of usage are wonderfully simple and clear.
But it simply didn't have in it enough of the words I looked up, so I sent it to a friend of mine in Spain who's learning English, and bought the Concise.
I must say at once that it was an immense improvement; in the three months I've had it, there's only been one word I've looked for that wasn't in it ("testudinal", which is found in William Manchester's biography of Winston Churchill: I think it means "relating to tortoises"). It's also strong on modern technical terms (such as "blog") and slang expressions (such as "go postal"). And whatever one's view of political correctness, one needs to be aware of it to be absolutely certain of avoiding offence. Here again I found the Concise exemplary.
However, I am not so ecstatic about some of the other features.
One is the treatment of pronunciation. I accept that it's better to use the IPA than some half-baked phonetic equivalent, and I'm gradually getting used to it. But "the principle followed is that pronunciations are only given where they are likely to cause problems for the native speaker of English". So if you're not a native speaker, then, presumably, screw you; you'd be better off with the Cambridge. Further, although US spellings are provided, US pronunciations are not, only RP ones; thus no cognizance is taken (for instance) of the difference between UK ad-'dress and US 'ad-dress. And although two pronunciations of "laboratory" are given, there's no indication of which is which.
I found the Concise unhelpful on some aspects of usage. When did "ætiology" become "aetiology", and when did "B.B.C." become "BBC"?
More alarming is a syntactic sloppiness that pervades the whole thing. Of course every dictionary must strike a balance between prescriptivism and descriptivism*, and by and large the Concise does a good job (as in the entry for "decimate", for example). The policy on possessives is explicitly stated in the usage note for "they": 'It is now widely held that the traditional use of "he" to refer to a person of either sex is outdated and sexist; the alternative, "he or she", can be clumsy. It is now generally acceptable, therefore, to use "they" (with its counterparts "them", "their" and "themselves" instead. [...]'. But this means that "a pupil should leave their coat in the lobby" is acceptable, although it looks very odd to me. I guess I'm just old-fashioned.
Among other oddities are the use of "which" instead of "that" in restrictive clauses, and (on the last page) "hyphened" instead "hyphenated".
Some of the entries seem to me slightly off-centre, too, e.g. "legless" is defined as "extremely drunk", which is true as far as it goes. But specifically it means "too drunk to stand"; if you can still stand, you aren't legless, however drunk you are. "Rabbit" as a Cockney term is said to come from "rabbit and pork" = "talk", but as a Londoner I've always understood it to be from "rabbit's paw" = "jaw".
But by and large I'm happy with the Concise.
*In this connection, it's perhaps a sign of the times that the spelling "miniscule" has now overtaken "minuscule" (p.1700).
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 Good Resource for Basic Everyday Use...
Hey the Oxford is 27 Volumes, and several thousand dollars. Most Libraries can't even afford it. This is a VERY concise version, and does not have the depth of the "real deal", however it works VERY well for grasping the meaning of an unknown word.
I wanted one good dictionary, and am VERY happy with this one. I highly recommend it for anyone who has a College education.
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Non-Fiction ( bluetyson )
Not many people can afford the five figure sum (or the floor space) for the complete oxford dictionary, or even the yearly subscription, so some other version is going to be quite popular.
This is a common edition for the world's most influential dictionary.
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 A most awkward pronunciation guide ( echjr )
The International Phonetic Alphabet is not the pronunciation guide I grew up with. The "o" sound in "no" is depicted by an upside down and backward "e" followed by an upside down Greek omega. Since it is a British dictionary, the "a" in "bath" is pronounced like the "ar" in "arm", not like "a" in "pat". I use a whole lot more "r" in my pronunciation than a proper Englishman would, too. Stress marks precede the accented syllable with secondary accents depicted by a comma. Syllable divisions are not shown. With the pronunciation key only on pages xv and xvi of the introduction, instead of on every page, pronouncing a new word is a challenge.
I use this dictionary only when I can't find a word in my American Heritage Dictionary. It helped with "grimoire" and "dog-end".
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Not exactly what I'd hoped for...
I am an English major and getting ready to go into a Master's degree. I had done extensive research on concise OED's and thought this one sounded the best. I was really hoping to get more backround info on words and more complete definitions. Perhaps there are too many words and just not enough pages! I am still happy to have it and have used it, but it is better for Boggle than anything so far!
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