7.0410 Rs: OED (3/40)

Elaine Brennan (EDITORS@BROWNVM.BITNET)
Wed, 12 Jan 1994 18:44:07 EST

Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 7, No. 0410. Wednesday, 12 Jan 1994.


(1) Date: Tue, 11 Jan 1994 23:35:57 EST (8 lines)
From: TFGREEN@SUVM
Subject: OED on CD

(2) Date: Tue, 11 Jan 1994 15:29:51 -0500 (EST) (17 lines)
From: Cathy Ball <CBALL@guvax.acc.georgetown.edu>
Subject: Re: 7.0391 Rs: OED on CD-ROM; End of an Era (2/70)

(3) Date: Tue, 11 Jan 94 14:31:27 CST (15 lines)
From: "Jim Marchand" <marchand@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu>
Subject: OED2 on CD-ROM

(1) --------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 11 Jan 1994 23:35:57 EST
From: TFGREEN@SUVM
Subject: OED on CD

I received the OED on CD as a retirement gift. Published by Oxford
Univ. Press. Inquire thereof. It is wonderful!! None of the problems
cited before on this topic. Search routines are useful, powerful and
convenient. I use it in Windows.
(2) --------------------------------------------------------------31----
Date: Tue, 11 Jan 1994 15:29:51 -0500 (EST)
From: Cathy Ball <CBALL@guvax.acc.georgetown.edu>
Subject: Re: 7.0391 Rs: OED on CD-ROM; End of an Era (2/70)

Mary Ellen Foley takes note of user interface problems with the PC version
of the OED on CD-ROM. I recently got the Mac version, which doesn't seem
to have these problems. For example, to look up a word, the user double-
clicks on the word in the wordlist, and the definition comes right up. To
follow a thread of cross-references is a matter of clicking on an item in
the definition; a phonetics search is just as simple. The only thing that
takes any amount of time is a wildcard search (e.g. *gry to get all words
ending in 'gry') or a search using the query language facility (e.g. to
investigate how the meanings of words for women have changed over time).
There's a bug in the Print function which they're fixing, but otherwise it's
great!

-- Cathy Ball (Georgetown)
(3) --------------------------------------------------------------28----
Date: Tue, 11 Jan 94 14:31:27 CST
From: "Jim Marchand" <marchand@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu>
Subject: OED2 on CD-ROM

The OED2 on CD-ROM, purchasable from Oxford University Press, has for me an
excellent interface. I do know, however, as an occasional writer of
up-front software, that tastes and skills differ. If your data is in ascii,
you can use the shareware program LIST from Vernon Buerg, available widely
on BBS' and from PC-SIG. There are also 3d party introductions to the OED2,
such as: Donna Lee Berg, "The Research Potential of the Electronic OED2
Database at the University of Waterloo: A Guide for Scholars," UW Centre for
the New Oxford English Dictionary (May, 1989). I use the OED2 CD-ROM
constantly and find it quite satisfactory, but I do prefer CD-ROMs with no
interface or one you can bypass without trouble.
Jim Marchand.