Today I ordered the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary (SOED). I'm quite excited. It looks like an impressive work. And yet it is a mere tadpole compared to that veritable leviathan of lexicography, the 20-volume Oxford English Dictionary. Man alive! What an ocean of language! A logophile's Elysium! A paradise of words!

Of the SOED, Onions says it is "to present in miniature all the features of the principal work" and to be "a quintessence of those vast materials" in the complete "OED". Comforting words. Today I make do with the dwarfish off-spring. Tomorrow, perhaps, I will be able to justify those 20 lovely volumes.

With all the free on-line dictionaries nowadays, there are people who say they cannot justify buying a "physical" dictionary. What do you think? Do you own a physical dictionary? Several? Perchance, the SOED? Perchance the OED? Laugh if you must, but for me browsing a dictionary is a pleasure paralleled only by reading a good book.