Folk based in the UK might find a trip to W H Smiths worth their while – they’ve got the current a version of Collins English Dictionary on sale with 75% off, which makes it £6.25. They’ve also got 50% off the Concise Oxford, so that’s down to £12.50.
Current Amazon UK prices are £14 for Collins and £13.75 for the Concise Oxford.
Significant features of Collins compared to my old 1991 edition:
- Quite large print – if the smallish print in most dictionaries troubles you, this is an advantage. Otherwise it just feels like a way of making a small book into a big one.
- less information – picking a random page, the 1991 version follows 33 defs for “blind” with 20 “blind something entries – blindage, blind alley, blind date, binder, blinders, blindfish, blindfold, Blind Freddie, blind gut, Blindheim, blinding, blind man’s buff, blind register, blindsight, blind snake, blind spot, blind staggers, blind stamping, blindstor(e)y, blindworm. The 2009 edition just has 19 defs for blind and 6 other words – blind alley, blind date, blindfold, blind man’s buff, blind spot, blindworm.
- 2009 version seems to have dropped Cockney rhyming slang – the relevant meanings for butcher’s, barnet and “apples and pears” have been dropped
- geographical and biographical entries are gone – no Churchill, whether as PM or Canadian place-name.
- There’s a 128-page grammar guide in the middle and 47 pages of “WOORD POWER & FACT FINDER” at the end – standard “back of dictionary” stuff like simple charts of the animal plant kingdoms, periodic table, music notation, and some more xwd-useful stuff like wedding anniversaries, mythological characters and creatures
Probably worth the £6.25 as a guide to what Times setters may inflict on you, but as a dictionary, it seems a pretty poor effort. For someone buying one fairly cheap current dictionary for use for xwd and other purposes, the Concise Oxford looks worth double the money – more information (close to the old Collins on the “blind something” words) in a smaller book.
A look back at Amazon reveals the reason for the reduction – a new “30th anniversary edition” of Collins is out in September. A closer look at the copy I bought suggests another – the words “Home edition” in smallish print on the book’s title page. This may mean it has shorter content than the full version. The paper cover, incidentally, is IDENTICAL to the one for the version with the Amazon link above except for the presence/absence of the words “in colour”, but the ISBN is different and the cover price is £25 not £35. Collins do seem to have a knack for producing multiple versions that look confusingly similar – another reason why I won’t be spending full price on a Collins for a very long time.
The dictionary seems to be largely useless: whenever I am discussing anything on Fifteen Squared and Collins is referred to, the so-called Collins definition bears no resemblance to my version’s. I am reluctant to mention Collins.
Modern publishers need to remember that rebranding and repackaging can go too far, and that content and clear differences between different books actually matter. I would not have paid full price for a Collins English Dictionary because of the dropping of biographical names, and wasting £6.25 on today’s wild goose chase has just made doubly sure. I thought my 1991 Collins was headed for the local charity shops, but this new one will probably go there instead. And I won’t be rushing into buying much else from Collins either.
If that is insufficient, via the Kent Education website any member of Kent Libraries can access a remarkable range of reference sources online, including OED, Britannica, Whos Who,DNB, Credo Reference etc etc.
Never have liked Collins. For me it has always lacked authority