(and dict coverage)

[Scott Swanson]

On Thu, 24 Oct 2002, Frank Abate wrote:

> DO NOT EVER USE the "Oxford American Dictionary" (copyright 1980 or so), and
> please, PLEASE do not buy it.  It has a telltale red jacket in its
> mass-market edition, and a yellow jacket in the trade paperback edition --
> the latter is the very same book, page-for-page, just larger trim size and
> type.  In fact, it is one book that I would like to see all copies of
> destroyed -- that's how awful, and now woefully out-of-date, it truly is.
>
> For Oxford American dicts, use the ones with the BLUE jackets.  AVOID the
> old one (check the copyright date) with the red or the yellow jacket --
> that's the bad one.
>

Help! I have an OAD copyrighted 1980 but with a blue jacket which I have
made available to my children in lieu of Dad's "squint-eye" OED (the
little rascals seem to have lost the magnifying glass which came with
it....). So should I toss it or not? How about reporting a shibboleth
entry which would distinguish between the good and the bad?....