Recently I bought a dictionary, something I suspect few others are doing in 2020. I was inspired by Austeon Kleon’s post about his. I use my computer’s dictionary constantly¹ — any time I read an unfamiliar word like “brogue” or am about to make of fool of myself for misusing “portentous” — but as Austin notes, I miss out on the serendipitous discovery you get with a paper version as you look up words. “A feature, not a bug.” I want that in my life.

I bought the beefiest one I could find, the Oxford Dictionary of English. It’s a hefty tome. In a pinch you can use it to stave off a home invasion.

Along the way I learned that the Oxford Dictionary of English is distinct from the Oxford English Dictionary. While the book I bought defines a respectable ~350,000 words, the OED is an ongoing project to document the entirety of the English language. The second edition was published in 1989 as a mammoth 20 volume set.² Oxford expects to complete the third edition in 2037, at which point it will require the entire Amazon rainforest to print a copy.

My friends and family roundly made fun of me for buying a dictionary. I get it. In elementary school, my classmate Kyle read the dictionary at recess.³ Whether he chose it over Goosebumps out of genuine linguistic curiosity or as a sort of intellectual performance art, we all agreed it was the behaviour of a future murderer. For the record, I’m not reading this thing cover to cover like Kyle. I’m not a psychopath.

My early impression of the ODE is positive. Clear definitions, helpful examples. It includes usage information for words that native speakers often confuse, e.g. “seasonal” vs. “seasonable”. Finding a definition is slower than a digital dictionary, but I write for fun when speed is no concern, and I learn interesting words as I flip pages. Like this one:

williwaw n. a sudden violent squall blowing offshore from a mountainous coast

Everyone is going to hate me when I drop “williwaw” into casual conversation, but Kyle will appreciate it.