Concise Oxford English Dictionary (Concise Dictionary)

Rating:
Summary: Excellent balance between brevity, clarity and depth
Review: After a pair of 11th edition dud copies (random sections of pages were mysteriously separating from their binding in chunks of ten or so by nothing more than a light tug or page turn), I finally got a copy that I think will be a keeper.

I love this dictionary. There is something special about it. The definitions are as advertised: clear and concise, yet they do not "dumb down" or leave detail or nuance out of the definitions...and YET AGAIN, you are not going to get into crazy bouts of looking up words within words like with dictionaries that obviously try hard to "sound academic," like the American Heritage College dictionary (which seemingly throws all of it's effort into inserting as many "ten dollar word" synonyms as possible into it's definitions).

This is a much more comfortable, much more clear, much more DELIGHTFUL volume.

As another contrast, I notice in the Oxford American dictionary a sort of attempt to...oh...perhaps dumb down the definitions. But too often what you read comes off as a bit convoluted or "off," like they are uncomfortably contorting to conform to some image of what the American reader thinks, knows or will readily comprehend...in other words, it feels awkward, like a Brit saying "dude" or an American saying "chuffed."

So, yes, you are going to get British terms/slang in here, but really it's no big deal when contrasted with the free and easy clarity of most all definitions in the volume.

"Easy reading is damn hard writing." - Nathaniel Hawthorne

By that metric, there has clearly been significant effort involved in the creation and maintenance of this volume. It IS easy reading, and yet it's not DUMBED-DOWN reading by any measure. Quite a special and commendable accomplishment.

This revised edition only improves upon the feel (in terms of the definitions themselves) of my previous edition, the ninth.

Hopefully OUP will sort out the quality control issues so that more people will get (and keep) this fine, fine dictionary.


Rating:
Summary: Complete and extremely well done.
Review: The reach of this dictionary is impressive. I only wish the pronunciation key were not so quirky.