Binding: CD-ROM
Brand: Oxford University Press
EAN: 0798936830319
Format: CD
Weight: 35 hundredths-pounds
Label: Oxford University Press
Legal Disclaimer: Warranty does not cover misuse of product.
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press
Packaged Height: 40 hundredths-inches
Packaged Length: 560 hundredths-inches
Packaged Weight: 20 hundredths-pounds
Packaged Width: 490 hundredths-inches
Platform: Windows
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Studio: Oxford University Press
Feature:
- WINDOWS 98/ME/2000/XP
- Up-to-date coverage from Oxford's unrivaled new word research
- Plus hundreds of extra notes on grammar, punctuation, and usage
- Amusing word games provide hours of learning and fun
- More than 240,000 words, phrases and meanings with definitions from the largest language research
Product Description:
The foremost authority on English with 240,000 words, phrases, and definitions. Includes thousands of new words and senses, over 50,000 spoken pronunciations, interactive word games, and more! Find relevant information instantly!
Customer Reviews:
4 of 4 customers found the following review helpful:
 Greatly improved; a pleasure to use!, 2008-06-21
This new version is not only updated to include the contents of the 11th printed edition; its software has been rewritten to provide a more pleasant, intuitive user interface. With nearly quarter of a million words, spoken pronunciations, usage advice, and explanations of where US and British usage differs, it's already outstanding value. Because you only see a single window on your screen (or a minimized icon) it's surprising to learn that the printed book runs to over 1600 pages - all of which are at your fingertips through the search field.
You get the first 14 pages of the printed dictionary as an indexed PDF, with the introduction, explanations of how everything is laid out, and sections on grammar, spelling and inflection, and pronunciation. Appendices cover countries of the world (each with its capital, area, population, and currency), Prime Ministers and Presidents, Kings and Queens, weights and measures, chemical elements, the solar system, collective nouns, types of language, English in Electronic Communication, and a Guide to Good English. Some of these might seem quirky or irrelevant, but it's nice to have so much information at your fingertips.
The COED still runs in 16-bit compatibility mode, but that is transparent to the user. It can be run from the CD or (more conveniently) installed to hard disk; and there are options to have it running permanently in background, and even to bring up the relevant entry when you double-click on any word in common applications such as Word or your browser. Two text sizes are available - slightly bigger and slightly smaller - but neither is hard to read for anyone with reasonable vision. The copy feature is slightly eccentric, but easily understood and (the main thing) it works fine.
It may be worth stressing that the COED is the definitive reference to *British* English, although it does a good job of identifying American variants and usage. (Indeed, it's particularly useful if you need to use both "dialects" and want to confirm which words end in "-ize" instead of "-ise", for example).
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