Have you heard? Starting next year, Macmillan’s range of dictionaries will only be available online, following a digital-only trend established by the Encyclopædia Britannica and the Canadian Oxford Dictionary.

In “Stop the presses—the end of the printed dictionary,” editor-in-chief Michael Rundell writes: “the digital medium is the best platform for a dictionary. One of its advantages is that we can now provide all kinds of supplementary resources—like this blog. The blog covers a huge range of issues, from language change and words in the news, via innovations in language technology or unexpected shifts in grammar, to ideas for teaching English and guidance on common errors.” Rundell also counts audio pronunciations and always being up to date as benefits of going digital.

Read the complete post, or watch the video that appears at the bottom of this page, along with its associated comments (preview: some people aren’t happy).

So. Macmillan’s range of dictionaries are going exclusively digital; Encyclopædia Britannica has gone exclusively digital; the Canadian Oxford Dictionary has gone exclusively digital. Could the venerable Oxford English Dictionary—still available in print—be far behind?

© Macmillan.

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