Sales of the third edition of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) have fallen and will never appear in print again because of the impact of the internet on book sales, according to its publisher。

　　The dictionary's owner, Oxford University Press (OUP)， said the impact of the internet means the third edition of the OED – known as OED3 - will probably appear only in electronic form. "The print dictionary market is just disappearing, it is falling away by tens of percent a year," said Nigel Portwood, the chief executive of OUP. Asked if he thought the third edition would be printed, he said: "I don't think so." Portwood said printed dictionaries had a shelf life of about another 30 years。

　　Now a team of 80 lexicographers has been working on the third edition of the OED3 for the past 21 years. It is still estimated to be more than a decade away from completion; only 28 percent has been finished to date。

　　OUP said it would continue to print the more familiar Oxford Dictionary of English, the single-volume version sold in bookshops and which contains more contemporary entries such as vuvuzela, the plastic trumpet encountered in the 2010 football World Cup。

　　The most recent OED has existed online for more than a decade, where it receives two million hits a month from subscribers who pay an annual fee of 240 pounds。

　　"Books are about to vanish; reading is about to expand as a pastime; these are inescapable realities," said Portwood。

　　英国《每日电讯报》8月29日文章：《牛津英文词典》“将不会付梓”

　　牛津大学出版社近日称，鉴于网络对图书市场的冲击，《牛津英文词典》第三版销量下降，并在将来可能不再印刷。

　　词典出版商牛津大学出版社称网络的冲击意味着《牛津英文词典》第三版(也称OED3)将很有可能只以电子形式出现。“印刷版词典正在消失，每年缩水几十个百分点，”牛津大学出版社行政总裁奈杰尔-波特伍德称。当被问到第三版会不会印刷时，他说：“我可不这么想。”波特伍德还称印刷版词典可能还有大约30年“货架寿命”。

　　一个由80人组成的编纂小组过去21年来一直从事《牛津英文词典》第三版的编纂工作，但他们还需要工作10年才能完成，因为编纂工作仅完成了21%。

　　出版社还称将继续出版更通俗的《牛津英文词典》，即书店常见的单卷版。这种精简版词典吸纳更多当代词条。例如，今年南非世界杯期间的乐器vuvuzela(呜呜祖拉)已入选最新的修订版。

　　眼下流行的第二版《牛津英文词典》已在网上流行了10年，每月点击率达200万次。用户每年需支付240英镑(约合373美元)订阅费。

　　“纸质书即将消失，阅读将会成为一种消遣，这种现实避免不了，”波特伍德说道。