lexicography (1)

Lexicography and Oxford English Dictionary

Introduction

For, the English Dictionary, like the English Constitution, is the creation of no one man, and of

no one age; it is a growth that has slowly developed itself a down the ages. Its beginnings lie far

back in times almost prehistoric. And these beginnings themselves, although the English

Dictionary of to-day is lineally developed from them, were neither Dictionaries, nor even

English.1

The Oxford History of English Lexicography provides a broad-ranging and detailed survey of

English-language lexicography, with contributions from leading authorities in Britain, Europe,

and North America. General-purpose and specialized dictionaries are treated in two parallel

volumes, within a common historical perspective. The present volume deals with English

monolingual dictionaries and with bilingual works one of whose component languages is

English. A second volume, with its own introduction and combined bibliography, explores in

depth the extraordinarily rich diversity of specialized dictionaries. The term ‘English

lexicography’ is interpreted broadly to embrace dictionaries of Scots, of American English, and

of the varieties of English spoken in Australia, Canada, India, New Zealand, and South Africa. It

is also taken to apply to dictionaries of the English-based Creoles of the Caribbean. The History

provides detailed, fully documented, treatments of the various scholarly projects which have

been central to the development of lexicography over the past 150 years, and takes full account

of the impact, on English dictionaries of all kinds, of recent developments in corpus and

computational linguistics. The elaborate, large-scale dictionaries of today evolved by stages from

simple beginnings.2

1.2. A Brief History of English Lexicography

1. Latin and French Glossaries

Year Author /Editor Dictionary Size /Type

1440 Promptorium Parvulorum, sivre Clericorum ("Storehouse [of words] for children or clerics")

English-Latin

1476 Caxton Printing in England

1480 Caxton A French-English Glossary (no title) French-English

1Murray, James Augustus Henry, The evolution of English lexicography, 2004, p.72 A. P. Cowie, THE OXFORD HISTORY OF ENGLISHLEXICOGRAPHY, VOLUME I GENERAL-PURPOSE DICTIONARIES, 2009, pp. 21-23

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1499 Caxton Promptorium "hard words"

1500 Hortus Vocabularum ("Garden of Words") Latin-English

1533 John Withals A Shorte Dictionarie for Yong Begynners English-Latin

1538 Sir Thomas Elyot Dictionary (Bibliotheca Eliotae) Latin-English

1565 Thomas Cooper Thesaurus Linguae Romanae et Britannicae ("Thesaurus of the Roman Tongue and the British")

French-English

2. Early English Dictionaries: The Seventeenth Century


1552 Richard Huloet Abecedarium Anglo-Latinum English-Latin-(Fr.)

1582 Richard Mulcaster Elementarie 8,000 words

1588 Thomas Thomas Dictionarium Linguae Latinae et Anglicanae Latin-English

1598 John Florio A Worlde of Words Italian-English

1604 Robert Cawdrey A Table Alphabeticall .... 2,500 words

1616 John Bullokar An English Expositor ca. 5,000 words

1623 Henry Cockeram The English Dictionarie (or An Interpreter of Hard English Words)

3 parts

1656 Thomas Blount Glossographia (or A Dictionary Interpreting all such Hard Words ... as are now used in our refined English Tongue)

1658 Edward Phillips The New World of English Words (specialists)

1673 Thomas Blount A World of Errors Discovered in the New World of Words

1676 Elisha Coles An English Dictionary 25,000 words

3. The Beginning of Modern Dictionary Practice: The Eighteenth Century


1702 John Kersey A New English Dictionary 28,000 words (70 years)

1704 John Harris Lexicon Technicum (or An Universal English Dictionary of Arts and Sciences ...)

1706 John Kersey, ed. Philips's New World of English Words 38,000 words

1721 Nathan Bailey An Universal Etymological English Dictionary 40,000 words (30 editions 1721-1802), etymology,

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word stress (1740)

1727 Nathan Bailey Volume II supplementary volume: 2 parts, 1731 ed.

1728 Ephraim Chambers Cyclopaedia (or An Universal Dictionary of Arts and Sciences)

1730 Nathan Bailey Dictionarium Britannicum 48,000 words

1747 Samuel Johnson Plan of a Dictionary of the English Language "to fix the language"

1749 Benjamin Martin Lingua Britannica Reformata

1755 Samuel Johnson Dictionary 40,000 words (2 vls.)

1755 Scott et al. eds. A New Universal English Dictionary

4. Dictionaries of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries


1757 James Buchanan Linguae Britannicae

1764 William Johnston Pronouncing and Spelling Dictionary

1764 John Entick Spelling Dictionary

1773 William Kenrick A New Dictionary of the English Language

1780 Thomas Sheridan A General Dictionary of the English Language "respelled"

1783 Noah Webster The American Spelling Book 260 impressions (1783-1843)

1791 John Walker Critical Pronouncing Dictionary and Expositor of the English Language

1818 Encyclopaedia metropolitana (cf. OED)

1818 Henry Todd, ed. Johnson's Dictionary

1820 Albert Chalmers, ed. Todd-Johnson with Walker's Pronunciations abridged edition

1828 Joseph E. Worcester, ed.

Chalmers's Dictionary

1828 Noah Webster An American Dictionary of the English

Language

2 vols.

1830 Joseph Worcester Comprehensive Pronouncing and

Explanatory Dictionary of the English

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Language

1837 Charles Richardson A New Dictionary of the English Language (cf. OED)

1841 Noah Webster An American Dictionary of the English Language

new edition

1846 Joseph Worcester Universal and Critical Dictionary of the English Language

(1857) Richard Chenevix Trench

On Some Deficiencies in Our English Dictionaries

(cf. OED)

1860 Joseph Worcester A Dictionary of the English Language 104,000 entries, 1,800 pages

1864 Noah Porter, ed. A Dictionary of the English Language unabridged, Webster-Mahn, Merriam-Webster

1882 Charles Annandale The Century Dictionary

1890 Merriam International Dictionary

1893 Funk & Wagnalls Standard Dictionary of the English Language

5. Dictionaries of the 20th Century


1909 Merriam International Dictionary

1913 Funk & Wagnalls New Standard Dictionary of the English Language

450,000 terms

1927 The New Century Dictionary

1928 Oxford English Dictionary 1888-1928, 1933

1934 Webster's New International Dictionary 600,000 entries

1938 Irving Lorge & Edward Thorndike

A Semantic Count of English Words

1947 American College Dictionary 132,000

1947 Funk & Wagnalls New College Standard 145,000

1953 David Guralnik & Joseph Friend

Webster's New World Dictionary of the American Language

1961 Philip Babcock Gove, ed.

Webster's Third New International Dictionary 450,000 entries (100,000 new)

1963 Philip Babcock Gove, Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary

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ed.

1966 Random House The Random House Dictionary of the English Language

1968 Random House Random House Dictionary, College Edition (Random House College Dictionary)

155,000

1969 American Heritage Dictionary

1973 Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary

1983 Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary 160,0001

2.1. Dictionaries

A dictionary (also called a wordbook, lexicon or vocabulary) is a collection of words in one or

more specific languages, often listed alphabetically, with usage information, definitions,

etymologies, phonetics, pronunciations, and other information; or a book of words in one

language with their equivalents in another, also known as a lexicon. According to Nielsen

(2008) a dictionary may be regarded as a lexicographical product that is characterised by three

significant features:

it has been prepared for one or more functions;

it contains data that have been selected for the purpose of fulfilling those functions;

its lexicographic structures link and establish relationships between the data so that they

can meet the needs of users and fulfill the functions of the dictionary.

A different dimension on which dictionaries (usually just general-purpose ones) are sometimes

distinguished is whether they are prescriptive or descriptive, the latter being in theory largely

based on linguistic corpus studies—this is the case of most modern dictionaries. However, this

distinction cannot be upheld in the strictest sense. The choice of headwords is considered itself of

prescriptive nature; for instance, dictionaries avoid having too many taboo words in that position.

Stylistic indications (e.g. ‘informal’ or ‘vulgar’) present in many modern dictionaries is

considered less than objectively descriptive as well. 2

2.2. Oxford English Dictionary- 600,000 words … 3 million quotations … over 1000 years

of English

1Technische Universität Berlin Prof. Dr. Peter Erdmann /Dr. See-Young Cho, English Lexicography, http://www.bibkosh.com/ko.php?koid=187352 Piet Van Sterkenburg, A Practical Guide to Lexicography, 2003, pp. 3-7

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The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) is widely regarded as the accepted authority on the

English language. It is an unsurpassed guide to the meaning, history, and pronunciation of

600,000 words— past and present—from across the English-speaking world.

As a historical dictionary, the OED is very different from those of current English, in which the

focus is on present-day meanings. You'll still find these in the OED, but you'll also find the

history of individual words, and of the language—traced through 3 million quotations, from

classic literature and specialist periodicals to films scripts and cookery books.

The OED started life more than 150 years ago. Today, the dictionary is in the process of its first

major revision. Updates revise and extend the OED at regular intervals, each time subtly

adjusting our image of the English language.

How it began 1857: The Philological Society of London calls for a new English

Dictionary

More work than they thought 1884: Five years into a proposed ten-year project, the

editors reach ant

One step at a time 1884-1928: The Dictionary is published in fascicles

Keeping it current 1933-1986: Supplements to the OED

Making it modern 1980s: The Supplements are integrated with the OED to produce its

Second Edition

Into the electronic age 1992: The first CD-ROM version of the OED is published

The future has begun The present: The OED is now being fully revised, with new

material published in parts online

How it began

When the members of the Philological Society of London decided, in 1857, that existing

English language dictionaries were incomplete and deficient, and called for a complete re-

examination of the language from Anglo-Saxon times onward, they knew they were

embarking on an ambitious project. However, even they didn't realize the full extent of the

work they initiated, or how long it would take to achieve the final result.

The project proceeded slowly after the Society's first grand statement of purpose. Eventually,

in 1879, the Society made an agreement with the Oxford University Press and James A. H.

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Murray to begin work on a New English Dictionary (as the Oxford English Dictionary was

then known).

More work than they thought

The new dictionary was planned as a four-volume, 6,400-page work that would include all

English language vocabulary from the Early Middle English period (1150 AD) onward, plus

some earlier words if they had continued to be used into Middle English.

It was estimated that the project would be finished in approximately ten years. Five years

down the road, when Murray and his colleagues had only reached as far as the word ‘ant’,

they realized it was time to reconsider their schedule. It was not surprising that the project

was taking longer than anticipated. Not only are the complexities of the English language

formidable, but it also never stops evolving. Murray and his Dictionary colleagues had to

keep track of new words and new meanings of existing words at the same time that they were

trying to examine the previous seven centuries of the language's development.

Murray and his team did manage to publish the first part (or ‘fascicle’, to use the technical

term) in 1884, but it was clear by this point that a much more comprehensive work was

required than had been imagined by the Philological Society almost thirty years earlier.

One step at a time

Over the next four decades work on the Dictionary continued and new editors joined the

project. Murray now had a large team directed by himself, Henry Bradley, W.A. Craigie, and

C.T. Onions. These men worked steadily, producing fascicle after fascicle until finally, in

April, 1928, the last volume was published. Instead of 6,400 pages in four volumes, the

Dictionary published under the imposing name A New English Dictionary on Historical

Principles - contained over 400,000 words and phrases in ten volumes. Sadly, Murray did not

live to see the completion of his great work; he died in 1915. The work to which he had

devoted his life represented an achievement unprecedented in the history of publishing

anywhere in the world. The Dictionary had taken its place as the ultimate authority on the

language.

2.3. The OED today

What's new: every three months updates revise existing entries and add new words.

You'll also find regular features—on language development and use—offering routes

into the OED Online

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Free OED: even if you don't have subscriber access, the OED Online has a great deal

to offer

The OED today: discover the 21st century OED and find out more about the revision

programme, how to read an entry, and how to use the online OED

Aspects of English: informative and entertaining commentaries on the English

language, written by dictionary editors and specialist authors

Historical Thesaurus of the OED: now fully incorporated into OED Online, the

Historical Thesaurus of the OED arranges the dictionary by meaning. Trace the

changing language of the material world, the mind, and society, from the Anglo-

Saxon period to the modern day

New video shorts: a series of videos now live examines how the OED is produced

behind the scenes1

Bibliography

A.P. Cowie, The Oxford history of English lexicography, Volume I General Purpose

Dictionaries, 2009

Murray, James Augustus Henry, The evolution of English lexicography, 2004

Piet Van Sterkenburg, A Practical Guide to Lexicography, 20031 http://www.oed.com/public/about

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Webography

Technische Universität Berlin Prof. Dr. Peter Erdmann /Dr. See-Young Cho, English Lexicography, http://www.bibkosh.com/ko.php?koid=18735

http://www.oed.com/public/about

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lexicography (1)