> I just checked the cost of subscrbing to the OED online, and it's $550 > PER ANNUM! > Ok if you're a professional writer.
Whoa! If you're laboring under the delusion that most "professional writers" can afford such a thing, disabuse thyself! Writing is a particularly poor choice for making a decent living. It's kind of like being a musician (or, for that matter, a photographer): the very top of the profession is very well paid indeed (cf. J.K. Rowling, a former impoverished single parent who is now second only to Her Majesty Elizabeth II as the richest woman in England). But for the vast majority, adequate recompense is hard to come by. Did anyone happen to see the PBS special on Thomas Hart Benton that aired last night (well, aired here, anyway)? Although he was one of the best-known American painters of the 1930s and of the so-called "regional style," he spent the latter half of his life struggling. Re photography, some of you might be surprised to learn a) how many famous photographers were actually independently wealthy, and b) how many famous, important, or widely-known photographers were, or are, either poor, or suffer periods of poverty, or barely scrape by. --Mike
