I bought a copy of version two on CD from Amazon and it runs fine under Mountain Lion. It isn’t particularly Macky, but it seems to have all the important stuff including the ability to cut and paste definitions and a fairly good search function. (The installation is a little weird. It’s a two part DMG, so you have to load one file from one CD, then load the other before opening the installer volume.)
Given your description of its history, I’m willing to assume that the OUP is not exaggerating or padding the costs to produce and distribute this “authoritative document” So the only questions are (a) whether it is worth that cost to enough people who are (b) willing to pay, donate, or otherwise provide the support to make it happen.
If either (a) or (b) fails, it ain’t gonna survive no matter how much some of us would like it to. They’ve got to find some way to keep it from starving to death. I’m sure they’d welcome any creative suggestions which have half a chance of succeeding, or contributions, or competent volunteer staff.
But while they grope their way toward a workable answer – if there is one – they’re going to have to try some alternative funding models. This discussion was kicked off by one such. It may work. It may not. But I can’t fault them for trying it, since I don’t have anything better to offer.
That’s interesting 
It calls for an Araon Schwartz to download the entire thing, reformat it to remove any vestigial copyright in the layout produced by OUP, and then upload it onto the 'net to test this theory. I wonder if they measure access to prevent you doing that? Would OUP (be able to) hound such a person to death?
As a writer, my print copies of the OED and HTOED are to me what an anvil is to a blacksmith
Really now, I find it questionable that 98% of the 22,000 pages of the OED will ever be of any practical use even to a writer. I would think its sheer volume alone would be a hindrance more than anything. And if one is using language in such a way that a reader would need the OED to make proper sense of it, one must have a very narrow audience indeed.
Some weeks, ago, I was arguing with a particularly silly “sovereign law” advocate who advanced the claim that the “civil rights” protected by the 14th amendment represented an exceptionally narrow and novel class of “rights” intended to enslave rather than liberate those who claimed them, It would very handy to consult the OED, pick out an eighteenth or seventeenth century example of “civil rights” being used in a modern sense, and crush that little argument right then and there. Is that worth several hundred dollars? On its own, assuredly not.
But if you constantly have questions relating to how the English Language evolved over time, then yes the OED is useful. Some of these questions can, of course, be answered with Google books.But it’s cumbersome-- and it may leave you at the mercy of imperfect OCR algorithms.
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I have to compact version too. It is outdated and the text too small for my aging eyes even with magnification. It also takes forever to find something. I had a years subscription to oed.com which was great, but I could no longer afford to $300 per year or $30 per month on a fixed income. I suggested to their powers they lower costs for individuals. I got a polite response which paraphrases as ROFLOL. Of course if one is rich, information is accessible.
Where?
You don’t need to appreciate an artist’s technique to enjoy the art. But that doesn’t make technique any less worth celebrating.
Read Gene Wolfe’s Book of the New Sun series. You don’t need to recognize that all the fantastic words are legitimate English to follow and appreciate the story – you can just read them as invented language as in other fantasy and SF – but if you have the vocabulary to realize that this is what he’s doing it adds yet another layer to your enjoyment of the books.
Actually, no, scanning the book wouldn’t be legal. While individual facts are not copyrightable, collections of facts are. While the information contained in the OED is not protected, their effort in assembling it, formatting it, their choice of examples and language, and so on very much IS protected.
You’re free to recreate it from scratch. But if they can demonstrate that you did so by broad copying from an edition which is still under copyright, the law says you’re in the wrong, period, end of report.
(Think of it as a database. In other databases, it’s common to insert a few deliberate errors that serve as “smoking guns” to make copying easier to demonstrate. The only way you’d have the same errors would be if you copied from their database rather than going back to the sources. I don’t know of any deliberate errors in the OED – if I had to create one, it would be by inserting an invented word or two – but I suspect some simple statistical analysis would make wholesale copying obvious.)
If it’s worth having, find a way to support it. If it isn’t worth having, don’t have it. Easy choice.
You CAN own a marked-down electronic version of the OED: every Mac computer comes with it natively. It is a great thing. You may use the same resource to look up stuff on Wikipedia (UGH, but OK for BASIC information) and other sites. Basic defs, even some etymology. The application is simply called “dictionary.”
I think it’s for desktop/laptop Macs ONLY, not tablets or iPhones.
I’ve been learning to scowl on win/lose, blast through the framing limits of win/win, an play in the big field of awesome^3 beyond.
(I like exponentials) 
And thanks! I’m digging the idea, even though it was kind of a random tangent. I’m really keen on making a ‘plainspeak’ subset of the language that we can use on our politicians and such. As in 'could you repeat that in plainspeak? No? Then why are we listening to you again?
I did have a bit of personal pride in the ‘ough’-laden bit, that particular chunk of letters always kind of annoyed me!
I have a feeling that some people just don’t understand what the OED actually is…
I subscribe to the OED online word of the day service.
Here’s how earworm was recently defined by the OED:
earworm, n.
Pronunciation: Brit. /ˈɪəwəːm/, U.S. /ˈɪrˌwərm/
Etymology: < ear n.1 + worm n. Compare earlier earwig n. and discussion at that entry.
In sense 3 after German Ohrwurm in similar use (1988 in the passage translated in quot. 19911 at sense 3).
- An earwig. Now rare.
1598 W. Phillip tr. J. H. van Linschoten Disc. Voy. E. & W. Indies i. xlv. 84/2 They [sc. in India] can hardly kepe any paper.from wormes, which are like eare wormes.
1681 E. Tyson tr. J. Swammerdam Ephemeri Vita viii. 31 The Ear-worm, or Forfica,…hide[s] very large Wings under a small Shell or Case, as if they had none at all.
a1813 A. Murray Hist. European Lang. (1823) I. 457 In the Teutonic dialects any tortuous reptile was called wigga, as in ear-wigga, an ear-worm.
1870 H. Raphael tr. A. Vogel Pract. Treat. Dis. Children (ed. 3) vi. 435 The ear-worm (forficula auricula), so much dreaded by people, occasions no special danger.
1908 J. Crichton-Browne et al. Standard Family Physician II. 291 Flies, roaches, bedbugs, and fleas are rarely found in the ear; the so-called ‘ear-worm’ never.
†2. A counsellor who advises a monarch, etc., in secret. Cf. earwig n. 2. Obs. rare.
a1670 J. Hacket Scrinia Reserata (1693) ii. 152 If they advise the Destruction of the King, the State, or the Laws of the Realm, there is nothing in the Oath to protect such an Ear-worm, but he may be appeached. - A catchy tune or piece of music (or occas. a word or phrase) which persistently stays in a person’s mind, esp. to the point of irritation.
1991 J. Barrett tr. G. Weil Bride Price 53 In the vernacular, it’s called an ‘earworm’—words, bits of music that won’t leave you alone.
1991 Poetry Aug. 267 Earworm. A German phrase for a tune you cannot get out of your head.
2003 Windsor Star(Ont.) (Nexis) 23 Oct. b9 He surveyed about 500 students, faculty and staff on campus asking about the type, frequency and duration of earworms and possible causes and cures. Among the songs respondents picked as most likely to become stuck were: The Lion Sleeps Tonight and Who Let the Dogs Out.
2011 Atlantic Monthly Apr. 104/2 The best advice I’ve heard for making earworms go away is to just stop being irritated by them, and come to peace with the fact that you’re humming Britney Spears.
And here is how earworm is defined by the Oxford American supplied with MacOS X
earworm |ˈi(ə)rˌwərm|
noun
1 short for corn earworm. (an American moth caterpillar that is a pest of corn, cotton, and tomatoes. Also called bollworm, cotton bollworm, tomato fruitworm. [Heliothis zea, family Noctuidae.])
2 informal a catchy song or tune that runs continually through a person’s mind.
Note while both dictionaries define “earworm”, they use different words to define it. The Oxford American is not the OED without the quotations. It is based on the New Oxford Dictionary of English, which isn’t the OED either.
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where? Are you too old to have heard of bittorrent?
Really? well, dump the iphone, which controls everything you can see, then bittorent for the apk android software with has no controls what so ever.
well that’s not really how it’s done. They just take the full version, reverse engineer out the “phone home” bits, then recompile.
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