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Web Puts Oxford Dictionary On Deathwatch

In what ABC's Nightline would call "A sign of the times," the Oxford English Dictionary could be heading for extinction. Yes, as The Washington Post reports, the obvious culprit is the Web, which Oxford University Press now says has made the future of the printed dictionary "uncertain."

The digital version of the Oxford English Dictionary now gets 2 million hits a month from subscribers, who pay $295 a year for the service in the U.S., according to WaPo. By contrast, the current printed edition -- a 20-volume, 750-pound ($1,165) set published in 1989 -- has sold just 30,000 sets. "The print dictionary market is just disappearing. It is falling away by tens of percent a year," Nigel Portwood, chief executive of Oxford University Press, told The Sunday Times in an interview.

Read the whole story at The Washington Post »

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