Jan 7, 2011
No-strings-attached free access to the OED online for a month
The Oxford English Dictionary is the largest lexical compendium of our language. It attempts to exhaustively collect all words in English along with published example sentences. And unlike most dictionaries, it includes obsolete words as well, so that it serves not only as a dictionary for today, but a history of English as well.
Obviously, it’s a big book.
The printed version is 20 volumes and costs about a thousand dollars. You can also get it in one volume and read it with a magnifying glass. That will only run you about $350.
Of course, most people nowadays would prefer this amount of data to simply be on their computers. And it is…for $295 a year.
But not right now…
This month you can use the OED online for free. Simply enter “trynewoed” as your name and password.
And if this amazing reference book intrigues you as much as it does me, you may be interested in Ammon Shea’s book Reading the OED: One Man, One Year, 21,730 Pages or in Simon Winchester’s The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary (which, believe it or not, is as compelling as the title would have you believe).
* * * * *
The Professor and the Madman is a wonderful read. Do yourself a favour and check it out.
UK readers can also get into the OED if they’re members of a public library, by clicking “Sign in” and popping in their library card number.
This is something I love about your blog: It makes me feel like being a word nerd and getting excited about dictionaries is the most normal thing in the world (which it is, of course, but not everybody really appreciates that)…
Agree that The Professor and the Madman is an amazing read. (And Simon Winchester is an amazing author.) Not inspired to try the OED though! Call me lazy …
“…includes obselete words…”
Do such things exist?
Thanks!
The most actionable piece of information I’ve obtained from your blog since the Joe Cocker mondegreens video.
The madman is a cousin of mine.
My mother actually got me a copy of the OED as a college graduation present. It did come with a magnifying glass. I moved that darn thing back and forth across the country before finally selling it to a used book store for only a fraction of what it cost me to move it all those years.
I hated that thing.
I’d like a mom like yours.
Is there any way to confirm that this is an OUP promotion and not a hacked or stolen pw? Wordorigins and Languagehat have the same info, the latter supposedly via Ben Zimmer, but I can’t find the confirmation there.
I’ve looked over the OUP/OED webpages, and they don’t seem to mention free access promotion – except for schools and institutions. In fact, there is this comment: “Please note: free trials are not available to students or those interested in the products for personal use.”
Any idea where the “trynewoed” came from?
Hmmm. No, I don’t know the original source. I think I saw it at Languagehat first. Not sure.
I doubt it’s a stolen name/pw since they’re the same, but whether it’s a hack, I have no idea.
I looked for it on the OED’s site, too, and couldn’t find it, which is strange.
I guess we’ll find out when February comes around… If it stops working, it was probably legit.
yay