To spend almost £25 on one book?

[fuzzpigFriday]

The book in question being the latest Oxford English Dictionary?

Just gave our old one to the charity shop I work in, so it can be recycled and they get money for it - it was falling apart, pages missing etc due to so much use. It was almost as old as me - I'm 24!

So, I figured I may as well get the most recent OED - old one was a Collins and was good but I have always lusted after this... £25 though

But I NEED a fabulous dictionary, don't I? I mean, the family bookcase would truly suffer without one... I'm right, aren't I?

Please tell me I'm right :o

Ah yes, scrabble (and other word games - we have a lot) is a good use for a dictionary. My mum did give us the official scrabble list books - thankfully they were only cheap as we hardly used them, we always got out the dictionary instead.

Interestingly my parents hardly ever use the aforementioned plethora of books - always thought it was a bit hypocritical, maybe I'm just rebelling :o

Totally with theLadyHare. Dictionaries are, in my book (see what I've done there?) sources of endless, endless joy (and they're useful).
£25 well spent, I say.

YANBU. I want one too now.

My most extravagant pleasure is the Oxford University Press summer sale.

Normally end up spending a £100 even at mostly 75% off.

Am in the middle of a move right now but can't wait to get stuck into this.

Hmmm, epidemiology.

But I guess it did cost less than £25...

Speaking of having lots of unread books, there is a joke in former Yugoslavia about the sort of philistine who goes into a shop and asks for "a metre and a half of light-blue Andric".

I don't geddit

Google/Wikipedia is your friend.

Nope still don't get it :(

The joke is that they are interested in how the book spines will look, all lined up nicely, in light blue (or another, suitable colour of) leather, rather than being interested in reading the things!

Sorry, I thought it was quite funny. Bloody geek I am...

Milky - Yes on a good atlas. My sister had one of those lovely Geography textbooks/ Atlas. I spent many hours looking at it.

Every house should also have a book about flags. They are not even that expensive, but are a great reference.

people buy dictionaries?

plupervert, you may joke but I work in a library and the number of times people ask for help finding a book and say "you know, the red one?"...

Oh I see thank you :) I think in the uk at least Steven Hawking's brief history of time is the most-bought-least-read book of all? IIRC.

The joke reminds me of the first episode of Black Books (not word perfect quote sorry):

Customer: are these books leather bound?
Bernard: what?
Customer: they need to be real leather to go with my sofa.
Bernard: yes, they are, £50 please.
[customer hands over cash]
Bernard: are they leather bound pounds?
Customer: what?
Bernard: sorry, they need to be leather to go with my wallet.

JumpJockey, when I worked in a bookshop, my colleagues and I had that asking-for-books-by-colour thing, too! One of my colleagues had a well-developed monologue (never shared with customers, obviously, but shared with us whenever he made a refinement) which directed the enquirer to the blue section of our colour-organised bookshop. The monologue was extremely well-crafted, and began with the immortal, oft-quoted words: "There's this book, right..."

fuzzpig - very nice, thanks!

www.amazon.co.uk/s/?ie=UTF8&keywords=penguin+hardback+classics&tag=googhydr-21&index=stripbooks&hvadid=7427028033&ref=pd_sl_3g6dyjdhw1_e#/ref=sr_nr_p_lbr_books_authors__2?rh=n%3A266239%2Ck%3Apenguin+hardback+classics%2Cp_lbr_books_authors_browse-bin%3AJane+Austen&bbn=266239&keywords=penguin+hardback+classics&ie=UTF8&qid=1309197996&rnid=535007031

for hardback penguin classics Jane Austeen

www.amazon.co.uk/s/?ie=UTF8&keywords=penguin+hardback+classics&tag=googhydr-21&index=stripbooks&hvadid=7427028033&ref=pd_sl_3g6dyjdhw1_e#/ref=sr_nr_p_lbr_books_authors__2?rh=n%3A266239%2Ck%3Apenguin+hardback+classics%2Cp_lbr_books_authors_browse-bin%3AJane+Austen&bbn=266239&keywords=penguin+hardback+classics&ie=UTF8&qid=1309197996&rnid=535007031

God no... Every home should have a good dictionary, thesaurus and atlas. Them's the rules!