Shorter Oxford English Dictionary - Sixth Edition (set of 2 books)

First of all I was not sure if the dictionary would run with Windows 7. Windows 7 was not included with the operating systems quoted on the back of the cd cover but it works fine. Installation was a pleasant surprise. I have the full OED on cd and installing that can take quite a while. This was lightning fast. My operating system suggested that installation was faulty but on trying it out it worked fine. I like the set up. It's easy to navigate around, very smooth. The entries, quotations etc. are clear. As for the dictionary itself I have yet to make up my mind as I will need to work with it a little bit. In my opinion the OED is the best English dictionary for fulfilling the most important function of a dictionary - imparting an understanding of a word. This version of the Shorter Oxford Dictionary is less forbidding than the older versions which is all to the good. I expect and hope that this latest edition has not lost the clarity of explanation which is a hallmark of most Oxford dictionaries.

This abridged edition IN BOOK FORM of the multi-volume OED covers enough words for language fans as well as editors and teachers. More often than not, an advanced learner's dictionary does not include enough words or the inflected forms of some words which also require explanation and it is here that this dictionary comes in to help. For example, most advanced learner's dictionaries include "halo" as a noun but no defined entry on its corresponding verb form. Also, the Shorter OED provides clearer definitions on simple words. For another example, "crotch" is not just about human groins, but also means "a fork of a tree or a bough" in a language context in which part of a tree is concerned. A wonderful compilation!

After obtaining this Shorter Oxford English Dictionary I have proof that has been denied me in all other dictionaries I have delved into to date. That quite simple word, having been part of my vocabulary since childhood, is the noun ( conjunction and adverb ) 'whilst', which has origins going right back to the late Middle English period. This means that it has been in use for at least 500 years, yet I was once castigated by my school's English teacher for using it in an essay, and computer spelling checkers now try to correct me when using it in internet correspondence. I know it is silly but, at 70 years of age, I eventually feel that I have been absolved of the ironic sin of using a word that has existed all along. The price of this two volume set alone is worth the settling of that matter in my mind. Eamonn

This is without a doubt the most useful dictionary I have ever bought. It's not oversized as it comes in two standard dictionary-sized volumes and fits neatly on the shelf. I am happy that it contains extended definitions plus contextual passages to back the words up. The sheer number of words contained in the dictionary makes it one of the most comprehensive dictionaries available. I have noticed that many people have given this product negative reviews due to the CD contained, however I find the CD to be an irrelevance to the dictionary as a whole and give it five stars in spite of the discontent expressed by some of the customers. For anyone who is familiar with the dictionary game, this is perfect as it contains a vast plethora of words which I never knew existed!

The SOED is an excellent resource for me. I was gifted the set by a family member for my birthday after I suggested that a dictionary would be a good gift as I currently read law. I find myself dipping into the set daily to find words and occasionally to prove people wrong with meanings and pronunciations! I did, however, have a few problems with the dictionaries when they arrived. The first set had a big grease mark across a couple of pages, so I ordered a replacement only to find that that also was defective and had very poor print quality in the second volume, another set was ordered and the same issue was in that one. After this I gave up and decided to just keep the third one with the ink issue seen as it was just very faint, but still there.

If you cannot afford the £750 for the 20 Volume edition of The Oxford English Dictionary, or if you do not have the shelf space to put them upon, then this is the edition to get. The two great volumes contain nearly four thousand pages, more than half a million definitions, and eighty-five thousand quotations illustrating the meanings and context of many words. What more could you ask for? Whenever I come across a new word or one I am not sure of the definition, I turn to my copy of the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary and find a lot more information than I expected. It is the kind of book that you think you only put on a shelf and refer to it "once in a blue moon", but when you discover all sorts of interesting words and etymologies of common words you want to look further. It is my number one reference book.

We are a crosssword loving family and these two volumes have already been well worth the money. Apart from being purely practical they are a never-ending source of interest about words and their origins. The entries are set out in a clear and easy to read fashion and the books themsleves are a delight to read.

As a Celtic Frenchman of Scottish origin living between countries using both English and French, these 2 volumes give me a good grasp of the subtleties of the English language. And I haven't forgotten Scots and Scottish Gaelic. Those are the joys of linguistics.

It is a good dictionary

Englisch scheint eine sehr einfache Sprache zu sein, sie kann aber auch sehr reich sein, wenn man sich darauf einlassen will. Das "Shorter Oxford English Dictionary" (SOED) gibt dazu einen Einblick ins Vokabular, in die Herkunft der Wörter, in die Vielfalt der Ausdrucksmöglichkeiten. "Shorter" ist dabei typisch englischer Humor, denn das SOED kommt in zwei mammutgroßen und elefantenschweren Bänden, die sich aber erstaunlich gut handhaben lassen. Die Schrift ist klein, aber sehr gut lesbar. Dreispaltiger Satz mit vielen Textbeispielen aus Presse und Literatur machen die Lektüre angenehm. Ja, Lektüre! Oder kauft jemand ein Wörterbuch nur zum nachschlagen? Das SOED schlägt man auf, aber nicht gleich wieder zu. Es ist spannend zu lesen und kann süchtig machen, wie eine Enzyklopädie oder ein großes Lexikon. Wem die zwei Bände SOED nicht reichen: Es gibt noch ein sündhaft teures komplettes "Oxford English Dictionary" (OED) in 20 Bänden. Das SOED enthält alle alle Wörter vom 17. Jahrhundert an bis zur heutigen Computersprache plus die älteren Wörter der englischen King-James-Bibel und die von William Shakespeares Werken. Wer mehr Textbeispiele und ganz altes Englisch vor dem 17. Jahrhundert braucht, sollte zum OED greifen. Das "Shorter Oxford English Dictionary" kommt in zwei Bänden im Schuber und ist fadengeheftet. Das heißt, man kann die Wälzer aufschlagen, und sie fallen nicht wieder zu, und die Bücher sind dauerhaft haltbar, weil die Seiten eingenäht sind. Was ich so von Langenscheidt und Duden bekomme, ist alles nur geklebt und wird früher oder später zur Loseblattsammlung. Wer mehr Amerikanisch nachschlagen will, ist wohl mit einem Merriam-Webster (M-W) besser bedient. Leider hat M-W keine Internationale Lautschrift, sondern etwas selbstgestrickt-amerikanisches, das man erst erlernen muß. Da ist das Shorter Oxford im Vorteil. Vom Preis her war Amazon bei weitem der günstigste Lieferant, 20 Euro unter dem günstigsten Preis auf dem sonstigen Markt. Das "Shorter Oxford English Dictionary" ist in jeder Hinsicht empfehlenswert! Ich bin sehr zufrieden.

Best usable dictionary of English. Contains One third content of Oxford English Dictionary in one fifth of its size. Printing and packaging upto mark.

Ce dictionnaire - c'est un pavé - est ce qu'il y a de plus complet et fouillé pour les amoureux de la langue anglaise. Je ne me lasse pas de m'y promener Rebecca

The impressive box cover is a foldable protective device and not a Slip Cover. The artwork on the slippery Dust Jacket is not reproduced on the blue covers, unlike the DK Oxford Illustrated Dictionaries. With strong glue and sensible folding, a home-made slip cover can be fashioned from the box cover. Shamelessly, I can "request" my staff put on a plastic wrap right away (outside their job description!), while I am going to the computer to order another set for my home. Better investment than futures derivatives and other dictionaries, I think. These two volumes need to have mylar plastic jackets with custom-made retaining end-pockets, so the publishers may want to consider this as an optional extra. I consider custom-made plastic jackets Mandatory, and those who do not want the Mylar jacket can just slip it away. Thus plastic protected, this Dictionary makes excellent reading from cover to cover, like a novel. The layout is superb. The words stand out. Etymology is usefully condensed and unobstrusive. All words are of the Good to Know category, and this is the FEEL GOOD dictionary of all time. I read it recreationally. I wondered if the CD proclaimed loudly on the protective box dropped out during shipping, but it was found securely stuck on an inside page at the end of Volume 2. Shrink wrapping on the 2 volumes means the CD is tamper-proof. This dictionary is more likely to go up in price rather than down. It was once Eligible for Super-Saver Shipping (mine), but this is no longer the case. Lock in your order now, before you get charged for the CD, which I thought was a pleasant unadvertised bonus. There is a hefty premium for the CD with the Concise Oxford. Much has been said of the scarily thin paper printed in Italy. I tugged on random pages and opined it can withstand a lifetime of reasonable use without tearing. It is not the heavy duty paper of the 1993 editionS, (there were several versions), which were ironically Printed in the United States of America, and had the American pronouncing key in many 1993 versions. This edition has the International Phonetic Transcription. I pinched a singular thin page with both hands and managed to lift the spine half an inch off the table with that singular page before my nerves gave way, rather than the page. The paper was of high quality; bright and pleasing to touch. Very little of the print on the reverse page can be "seen through", and the translucent effect was not noticeable unless you looked for it. Paradoxically, a different dictionary from another reputable publisher with much thicker Finnish paper had the print of the reverse page showing through. Words are divided into: A. MUST KNOW: the 3000 core words of any language which enables you to read the newspaper in that language, B. SHOULD KNOW: the 10000 words which allows you to argue, persuade, communicate, get a raise, and make you sound smart, C. GOOD TO KNOW: that is our SHORTER OXFORD forte. No archaic words. There is not a single word which might not come in handy one day. This is a fascinating journey of discovery into words I should have looked up, but was too lazy to do so at the time - reading in the toilet, space shuttle, being legit excuses, and D. THERE TO KNOW: which is the 20 Volume "Mother" OXFORD, which is also fascinating reading, but I have rarely bothered to resort to it for two decades, except in extremis, and it remains a vanity possession. The Head-letter of each and every entry is not auto-capitalised, unlike some idiotic 1993 versions. You can figure out how "Bangalore torpedo" is capitalised, but it is useful to know "clarence" the coach is not capitalised. If only I had known this dictionary was so reader friendly, I would have raved less about some other dictionaries, which are now reduced to compendiums by this Shorter Oxford. Let me explain: a. all Latin phrases are there, so there is no pressing need for a separate dictionary of latin phrases; and they are in useful phrase form, not in single word form which drives you crazy, b. all French phrases in common and uncommon use are there, c. all the commonly used Chinese, Japanese, asian romanised terms are there, d. all the medical terms of a small medical dictionary are there - "trust me, I am a doctor" :) - so there is no need for you to buy a "just in case" medical dictionary. I believe this applies to the "contingency" dictionaries in other professional disciplines and liberal arts. I am afraid to point out examples from the fabulous array of medical terms and products, for fear that my colleagues might construe it as a sign of my prior ignorance of these terms, e. a dictionary of Acronyms would now be totally subsumed, ...I think you get the idea of just how usefully comprehensive this work is. I am going to postpone my purchase of a Hebrew-English dictionary after finding "Talmid Chacham" (smart-ass) properly explained. For legal definitions, I would rather have professionally researched words, but I can foresee this Shorter Oxford coming in useful as evidence of Every Day usage of the English words, replacing the Concise Oxford, like in libel suits. Just about every small "specialised" dictionary, even technical ones, has been subsumed within the latest Shorter Oxford. In this respect, it is great value for money. Fear of clowns, "coulrophobia", on page 535, cannot be found in the 20 Volume Oxford and its Addition Series, nor in large Medical Dictionaries, nor in The American Psychiatric Association's DSM-IV TR Manual - shame! At the time of this review, it has been marked down from the list price of $175 to $110. In 1993, the dictionary was 39.95 pounds sterling. Some later revisions were 79.95 pounds sterling; special versions priced, well, specially. Given the exchange rate then of English money, the current Shorter Oxford is cheaper today in absolute terms. And if you factor in the purchasing power of money in 1993, you are getting this at just a fraction of the inflation-adjusted 1990s price, and a free CD too. To the Editors' credit, the Shorter Oxford steers well clear from being a thesaurus. Precise definitions are given, not a list of similar words leaving you wondering how to match the meaning with the appropriate simile. The height of the Shorter Oxford is just slightly less than the 20 Volume Mother Oxford. I suspect these two colourfully jacketed volumes are to join the 2009 (now printed in China) Mother Oxford , forming the preface of a 22 volume set. Sneaky. Other than my gripe with the unfortified Dust Jacket, this super-duper Edition merits association with the word "lexicographomania", which is not in the Shorter Oxford, but neither is it in the 20 volume Mother Oxford. And yes, the Shorter Oxford deliberately leaves out many portmanteau words where you can go figure out the meaning for yourself.