subliterate

[Paul Frank]

On Fri, Oct 29, 2010 at 5:34 PM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender: Â  Â  Â  American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster: Â  Â  Â  "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> Subject: Â  Â  Â Re: subliterate
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> At 10/29/2010 11:13 AM, Paul Frank wrote:
>>Incidentally, I don't see "subliterate" in my paper edition of the
>>OED2 and, being one of the great unwashed, I can't afford an online
>>subscription.
>
> For your cleansing, it's in the OED, with earliest quotation from
> 1958. Â It also has subliterature (1961), presumably what one reads
> while commuting on the subway.
>
> Joel

So it's in the online edition. I don't see it in the paper edition. I
wonder how many individual non-institutional subscribers to the online
edition there are out there. And I wonder why the OED costs £240.88
per year for individual joe blows like me. £240.88 works out to 380
Swiss francs, which is the equivalent of 25 bottles of good wine in
this neck of the woods. How many people can afford to fork out that
kind of money every year for a dictionary? I'd be willing to bet a
case of good wine that there will be no paper edition of the OED3.
Why? Because it would be a waste of paper, and obsolete as soon as
it's published.

Rant over.

Paul

Paul Frank
Translator
Chinese, German, French, Italian > English
Espace de l'Europe 16
Neuchâtel, Switzerland
paulfrank at bfs.admin.ch
paulfrank at post.harvard.edu

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org