It is the world’s most definitive work on the most global language, but the
Oxford English Dictionary may be disappearing from bookshelves forever.
Publishers fear the next edition will never appear in print form because its
vast size means only an online version will be feasible, and affordable, for
scholars.
It’s all academic for now anyway, they say, because the third edition of the
famous dictionary, estimated to fill 40 volumes, is running at least 20
years behind schedule.
Michael Proffitt, the OED’s first new chief editor for 20 years, said the
mammoth masterpiece is facing delays because “information overload” from the
internet is slowing his compilers.
His team of 70 philologists, including lexicographers, etymologists and
pronunciation experts, has been working on the latest version, known as
OED3, for the past 20 years.
Michael Proffitt revealed to Country
Life magazine that the next edition will not be completed until 2034,
and likely only to be offered in an online form because of its gargantuan
size.
“A lot of the first principles of the OED stand firm, but how it manifests has to change, and how it reaches people has to change,” said the 48-year-old Edinburgh-born editor.
Work on the new version, currently numbering 800,000 words, has been going on since 1994. The first edition, mooted in 1858 with completion expected in 10 years, took 70 years.
“Although the internet has made access easier,” said Mr Proffitt, “it’s also created the dilemma of information overload.
“In 1989, we looked for five years’ recorded usage before a word entered the dictionary. Now, it’s 10 years because there is so much more material to sift through.
“We look not only for frequency and longevity, but also breadth of use because, once a word enters the OED, it doesn’t come out. It’s a permanent record of language. I don’t think of it as a purely linguistic document, but as a part of social history.”
He said his team working on the definition of new entries has a target of 50 to 60 words a month, slower than in the past because the world wide web has created so much more source material.
Mr Proffitt said: “I averaged about 80 when I started because, in 1989, we didn’t have computers on our desks, so there was a limit to how much you could research. The library was our primary resource.”
The challenge facing his team was highlighted by associate editor Peter Gilliver, who once spent nine months revising definitions for the word “run”, currently the longest single entry in the OED.
“We can hear everything that’s going on in the world of English for the last 500 years, and it’s deafening,” he told the New York Times.
If the new dictionary is printed – and publishers Oxford University Press say a print version will only appear if there is sufficient demand at the time - it will comprise 40 volumes, double the length of the second edition in 1989.
Almost one third of a million entries were contained in the 21,730 pages of the second version of the OED, which sells for £750 and had been online since 2000, where it receives more than two million hits a month.
The latest electronic edition of the OED acknowledges the difficulties of producing commercially-viable print versions, saying: “The English language is far too large and diverse to be fully recordable in a dictionary, even one the size of the OED.”
Mr Proffitt said the internet represented a lifeline for giant reference works like the OED. “Strong works of reference have great future on the internet.
“The idea is to link from the context in which people are working directly into the OED: providing information at the point at which it’s needed.”
Other planned innovations include linking the OED to a Historical Thesaurus developed over the past 30 years by a team in Glasgow, he said.
“People mostly want to know about topics, not just words, but internet search engines are literal-minded,” he said. “This allows you to expand your search into areas you didn’t know about.”
Taking charge of the most esteemed record of the most global language means Mr Proffitt must be braced for criticism, with traditionalists complaining if he brings change and modernists if he resists it.
He is, however, far from the tweedy scholar of popular imagination. Among others, Mr Proffitt drafted the entry for “phat” (“a. Of a person, esp. a woman: sexy, attractive. b. Esp. of music: excellent, admirable; fashionable, ‘cool’ ”).
The editor said that his job is to be descriptive, rather than prescriptive when it comes to neologisms. But he added that many words and phrases were coined earlier than we imagine.
“OMG, for example, was first recorded in a letter from Admiral Fisher to Winston Churchill in 1917. The expression ‘to die for’ was used in a novel of 1898, in the same sense as today. Sometimes obsolete terms make a comeback.”
The first dictionary in recognisable format was Samuel Johnson’s, which was published in 1755. It remained the standard text for 150 years until the OUP embarked on its project in 1879.
The first OED came out in sections from 1884, completed in 1928. Despite its worldwide reputation, the OED has never made a profit as its commitment to continuing research runs up costs of several million pounds a year.
The OED reveals that many terms of today are older than expected:
OMG The first recorded appearance of this breathless acronym for “Oh, my God!” comes, surprisingly, in a letter to Winston Churchill.
1917 J. A. F. Fisher Let. 9 Sept. in Memories (1919) v. 78. I hear that a new order of Knighthood is on the tapis — O.M.G. (Oh! My God!) — Shower it on the Admiralty!!
LITERALLY Pedants wince when “literally” is used figuratively. Examples of this go back to 1769. Even Mark Twain did it.
1876 ‘M. Twain’ Adventures Tom Sawyer ii. 20 And when the middle of the afternoon came, from being a poor poverty-stricken boy in the morning, Tom was literally rolling in wealth.
LIKE Few words provoke ire like “like.” Dropped into sentences, “like” is not only used by verbally-challenged teens.
1778 F. Burney Evelina II. xxiii. 222 Father grew quite uneasy, like, for fear of his Lordship’s taking offence.
UNFRIEND Facebook was born in 2004 but unfriending began a lot earlier.
1659 T. Fuller Let. P. Heylyn in Appeal Injured Innoc. iii, I Hope, Sir, that we are not mutually Un-friended by this Difference which hath happened betwixt us.
WHATEVER The earliest record of this crushing retort does not go back centuries, but it is still older than many users.
1973 To our Returned Prisoners of War (U.S. Secretary of Defense, Public Affairs) 10 Whatever, equivalent to “that’s what I meant.” Usually implies boredom with topic or lack of concern for a precise definition of meaning.
By Padraic Flanagan
With thanks to the Telegraph - UK
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“A lot of the first principles of the OED stand firm, but how it manifests has to change, and how it reaches people has to change,” said the 48-year-old Edinburgh-born editor.
Work on the new version, currently numbering 800,000 words, has been going on since 1994. The first edition, mooted in 1858 with completion expected in 10 years, took 70 years.
“Although the internet has made access easier,” said Mr Proffitt, “it’s also created the dilemma of information overload.
“In 1989, we looked for five years’ recorded usage before a word entered the dictionary. Now, it’s 10 years because there is so much more material to sift through.
“We look not only for frequency and longevity, but also breadth of use because, once a word enters the OED, it doesn’t come out. It’s a permanent record of language. I don’t think of it as a purely linguistic document, but as a part of social history.”
He said his team working on the definition of new entries has a target of 50 to 60 words a month, slower than in the past because the world wide web has created so much more source material.
Mr Proffitt said: “I averaged about 80 when I started because, in 1989, we didn’t have computers on our desks, so there was a limit to how much you could research. The library was our primary resource.”
The challenge facing his team was highlighted by associate editor Peter Gilliver, who once spent nine months revising definitions for the word “run”, currently the longest single entry in the OED.
“We can hear everything that’s going on in the world of English for the last 500 years, and it’s deafening,” he told the New York Times.
If the new dictionary is printed – and publishers Oxford University Press say a print version will only appear if there is sufficient demand at the time - it will comprise 40 volumes, double the length of the second edition in 1989.
Almost one third of a million entries were contained in the 21,730 pages of the second version of the OED, which sells for £750 and had been online since 2000, where it receives more than two million hits a month.
The latest electronic edition of the OED acknowledges the difficulties of producing commercially-viable print versions, saying: “The English language is far too large and diverse to be fully recordable in a dictionary, even one the size of the OED.”
Mr Proffitt said the internet represented a lifeline for giant reference works like the OED. “Strong works of reference have great future on the internet.
“The idea is to link from the context in which people are working directly into the OED: providing information at the point at which it’s needed.”
Other planned innovations include linking the OED to a Historical Thesaurus developed over the past 30 years by a team in Glasgow, he said.
“People mostly want to know about topics, not just words, but internet search engines are literal-minded,” he said. “This allows you to expand your search into areas you didn’t know about.”
Taking charge of the most esteemed record of the most global language means Mr Proffitt must be braced for criticism, with traditionalists complaining if he brings change and modernists if he resists it.
He is, however, far from the tweedy scholar of popular imagination. Among others, Mr Proffitt drafted the entry for “phat” (“a. Of a person, esp. a woman: sexy, attractive. b. Esp. of music: excellent, admirable; fashionable, ‘cool’ ”).
The editor said that his job is to be descriptive, rather than prescriptive when it comes to neologisms. But he added that many words and phrases were coined earlier than we imagine.
“OMG, for example, was first recorded in a letter from Admiral Fisher to Winston Churchill in 1917. The expression ‘to die for’ was used in a novel of 1898, in the same sense as today. Sometimes obsolete terms make a comeback.”
The first dictionary in recognisable format was Samuel Johnson’s, which was published in 1755. It remained the standard text for 150 years until the OUP embarked on its project in 1879.
The first OED came out in sections from 1884, completed in 1928. Despite its worldwide reputation, the OED has never made a profit as its commitment to continuing research runs up costs of several million pounds a year.
The OED reveals that many terms of today are older than expected:
OMG The first recorded appearance of this breathless acronym for “Oh, my God!” comes, surprisingly, in a letter to Winston Churchill.
1917 J. A. F. Fisher Let. 9 Sept. in Memories (1919) v. 78. I hear that a new order of Knighthood is on the tapis — O.M.G. (Oh! My God!) — Shower it on the Admiralty!!
LITERALLY Pedants wince when “literally” is used figuratively. Examples of this go back to 1769. Even Mark Twain did it.
1876 ‘M. Twain’ Adventures Tom Sawyer ii. 20 And when the middle of the afternoon came, from being a poor poverty-stricken boy in the morning, Tom was literally rolling in wealth.
LIKE Few words provoke ire like “like.” Dropped into sentences, “like” is not only used by verbally-challenged teens.
1778 F. Burney Evelina II. xxiii. 222 Father grew quite uneasy, like, for fear of his Lordship’s taking offence.
UNFRIEND Facebook was born in 2004 but unfriending began a lot earlier.
1659 T. Fuller Let. P. Heylyn in Appeal Injured Innoc. iii, I Hope, Sir, that we are not mutually Un-friended by this Difference which hath happened betwixt us.
WHATEVER The earliest record of this crushing retort does not go back centuries, but it is still older than many users.
1973 To our Returned Prisoners of War (U.S. Secretary of Defense, Public Affairs) 10 Whatever, equivalent to “that’s what I meant.” Usually implies boredom with topic or lack of concern for a precise definition of meaning.
By Padraic Flanagan
With thanks to the Telegraph - UK
Heteronyms
English And Mathematics Are Being Sorely Neglected
11 Inventors Who Became Nouns
Do All Languages Come From A Single Common Ancestor?
How English Gave Birth To Surprising New Languages
Can You Correctly Pronounce Every Word In This Poem?
The Memory of Mankind Archive: The Greatest Time Capsule Ever
