Discussion
Dudes after a lifetime of wanting one, a Compact OED popped up at a reasonable-ish price, and I pounced on it. (The Compact, as you can maybe see, is a single-volume, micrographic presentation of *the entire twenty-volume Oxford English Dictionary*, 2nd Edition.) I’m over the moon.
@adamgreenfield Oh wow! We had that in stock at a bookshop I worked in back in the day, along with the full multi-volume OED. Sometimes I have to pinch myself at the stuff I was nonchalantly around every day…
@adamgreenfield look up words like set.take.roof thry each have dozens of meanings
@adamgreenfield Beautiful. In print form I have just the two-volume Shorter OED but consider the full work one of humanity's crowning achievements. I'm still chuffed that they interviewed me once.
Oliver Sacks described it as "the most coveted and desirable book in the world" and was poring over it one winter in NYC when Werner Herzog went looking for him, enabling immediate identification.
@stancarey I had no idea. How wonderful.
@adamgreenfield well that's bedtime reading sorted for the next decade or two
Oddly, this immediately feels like the most Lifehouse-ish thing within my grasp, moreso than the solar generator or first-aid supplies or stock of bottled water: a quiet gesture toward the continuity of knowledge, if not yet a defense of its conditions of possibility. I find it deeply moving.
@adamgreenfield awesome!! what a find! how much does it weigh? and what does it look like as a full volume on the desk?
@dch 7.4 kg. And glorious!
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