"Third edition of OED unlikely to appear in print
format"
Very unsurprising.
"Publishers confirm that print dictionary market
is disappearing so
third edition is unlikely"
Does anybody know the rough statistics on printed encyclopedias (which
admittedly constitute a far smaller market than dictionaries)? In any
case this movement away from print can only be promising news for our
readership statistics.
(One therefore wonders the continuing usefulness of
edition numbers.)
For ease of reference, I guess. In academia, when a vagueism crops up
in texts being studied or researched, attempts to pin down the precise
meaning intended are often supported by reference to a dictionary; to
disguise the fact that nothing more complex than "reading the
dictionary" is being undertaken, full references to the OED will be
supplied.
There *is* something nice about edition numbers, though.
Even online, I suspect you would have edition numbers
to identify major updates, with more frequent updates occurring between those "save
points".
Aye, that may well be the compromise they arrive at.
AGK