Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!watdragon!watsol!tbray
From: tbray@watsol.waterloo.edu (Tim Bray)
Newsgroups: comp.text
Subject: Re: looking for Oxford English Dictionary..
Summary: Just the facts, ma'am
Keywords: electronic dictionary, OED
Message-ID: <9646@watdragon.waterloo.edu>
Date: 13 Nov 88 19:17:34 GMT
References: <2348@cs.Buffalo.EDU> <471@fallst.UUCP> <1236@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu>
Sender: daemon@watdragon.waterloo.edu
Reply-To: tbray@watsol.waterloo.edu (Tim Bray)
Organization: New Oxford English Dictionary Project, U. of Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 36

In article <2348@cs.Buffalo.EDU>, ugptucha@cs.Buffalo.EDU (Ray Ptucha) writes:
> 
> I'm not sure if this is the correct newsgroup for this, but...
> Does anyone have a copy of the Oxford English Dictionary that 
> I could ftp?
And there have been various responses; thought I should fill people in.
There are 3 things you might be referring to when you say 'OED':

1. The original 12 volume OED, finished in 1928.
2. The 4-volume Supplement, finished in 1986.
3. The 20-volume Second Edition, to be published March 1989, incorporating
   #1, #2, and lots of new material.

Here are #1 and #2:
-r--r-----  1 ghgonnet 400989181 May 21 08:39 OED
-r--r-----  1 tbray    128709256 May 27 08:45 S

Quite large as you can see.  They are regarded by Oxford University
Press as highly proprietary, and OUP is going to want money in exchange
for their use.  There is one exception to this; if you are a bona fide
scholar or researcher whose work might make valuable use of the OED, you
can come use this info here at Waterloo; we have tools to help make
sense of it, and even a certain amount of money available to support
such visitors.

You can buy #1 in the list above right now, on a CD-ROM, from OUP, at a
price a little over $1K last time I checked.  The software that comes
with it is nice, user-friendly, but not really suitable for the kind of
serious research that the OED can support.  Contact the nearest OUP
office for info (they're in NY, LA, and Toronto that I know of, and
probably elsewhere).

The OED is a wonderful book, and indeed, everyone should have a cheap
electronic version handy.  That's one of the things we're working on.
Tim Bray    Manager, New Oxford English Dictionary Project
            University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ont.