Listen to David Crystal read an extract from his exclusive introductory essay
Review from previous edition The Shorter demands a shelf, but one very close to the desk of anyone who cares about words. Daily Telegraph The Shorter is the Matterhorn to the great OED's Everest - elegant, awesome and marvelous to behold, differing only in size. A stupendous achievement. Simon Winchester, author of The Professor and the Madman It may be difficult to carry, but not to read Erich Segal, Times Literary Supplement It must be difficult trying to come up with a bright marketing technique to sell the fifth edition of the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary ...but the OUP seems to have managed it. On the box housing the two volumes of this mighty enterprise is a picture of a white-bearded gentleman in a cloak who, at first blush, appears to be J. K. Rowling's Albus Dumbledore. However, it is Sir James Murray (1837-1915), the first Editor of the real, 21-volume Oxford English Dictionary, of which the Shorter is an honest abridgement. More than half a million definitions are presented in clear type, set big enough for all but the most long-sighted. Chris Campling, Times ... truly a dictionary of global English. Sydney Morning Herald Even at a fraction of its original bulk, the premier collection of English words manages to squeeze in over a third of the original's content, including its hallmark: minute etymological details. US News & World Reports The Shorter is a mine of information Toronto Star ... astonishingly good value ... the new SOED is all that one would expect of it. Keith Waterhouse, Daily Mail It is a dictionary with zest ... a rare treasure. Frank Devine, The Australian The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary redefines hip. The New York Post
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