The Oxford English Dictionary (OED), published by the Oxford University Press (OUP), is a comprehensive dictionary of the English language. A dictionary is a book of alphabetically listed Words in a specific language with definitions etymologies pronunciations and other information or a book of alphabetically English is a West Germanic language originating in England and is the First language for most people in the United Kingdom, the United States ^[1] The OED should not be confused with the one-volume Oxford Dictionary of English, formerly New Oxford Dictionary of English, of 1998. The Oxford Dictionary of English (formerly The New Oxford Dictionary of English, often abbreviated to NODE is a single-volume English language The Oxford Dictionary of English (formerly The New Oxford Dictionary of English, often abbreviated to NODE is a single-volume English language

As of 30 November 2005, the Oxford English Dictionary contained about 301,100 main entries. Events 1700 - Battle of Narva — A Swedish army of 8500 men under Charles XII defeats Year 2005 ( MMV) was a Common year starting on Saturday (link displays full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. Supplementing each entry headword, there are 157,000 bold-type combinations and derivatives; 169,000 italicized-bold phrases and combinations; 616,500 word-forms in total, including 137,000 pronunciations; 249,300 etymologies; 577,000 cross-references; and 2,412,400 usage quotations. See also Lemma (linguistics A headword, head word, lemma, or sometimes catchword is the word under which a set of related Dictionary Etymology is the study of the History of Words &mdash when they entered a language from what source and how their form and meaning have changed over time For the Wikipedia quotation templates see:CategoryQuotation templates. The dictionary's latest, complete print edition (Second Edition, 1989) was printed in 20 volumes, comprising 291,500 entries in 21,730 pages.

The OED's official policy attempted to record a word's most-known usages and variants in all varieties of English past and present, world-wide. Per the 1933 Preface:

The aim of this Dictionary is to present in alphabetical series the words that have formed the English vocabulary from the time of the earliest records [ca. AD740] down to the present day, with all the relevant facts concerning their form, sense-history, pronunciation, and etymology. It embraces not only the standard language of literature and conversation, whether current at the moment, or obsolete, or archaic, but also the main technical vocabulary, and a large measure of dialectal usage and slang.

It clarified:

Hence we exclude all words that had become obsolete by 1150 [the end of the Old English era]  . . . Dialectal words and forms which occur since 1500 are not admitted, except when they continue the history of the word or sense once in general use, illustrate the history of a word, or have themselves a certain literary currency.

The OED is the focus of much scholarly work about English words. Its headword variant spellings order list influences written English in Anglophone countries.

History

Origins

At first, the dictionary was unconnected to Oxford University; it originally was a Philological Society project conceived in London by Richard Chenevix Trench, Herbert Coleridge, and Frederick Furnivall, who were dissatisfied with the current English dictionaries. The Philological Society is the oldest Learned society in Great Britain dedicated to the study of Language. Richard Chenevix Trench (9 September 1807 – 28 March 1886 was an Anglican Archbishop and Poet. Herbert "Herbie" Coleridge ( October 7, 1830 - April 23, 1861) was a British Philologist, technically the first Frederick James Furnivall ( 4 February 1825 &ndash 2 July 1910) one of the co-creators of the Oxford English Dictionary In June 1857, they formed an "Unregistered Words Committee" to search for unlisted and undefined words lacking in current dictionaries. In November, Trench's report was not a list of unregistered words; instead, it was the study On Some Deficiencies in our English Dictionaries, which identified seven distinct shortcomings in contemporary dictionaries:

• Incomplete coverage of obsolete words
• Inconsistent coverage of families of related words
• Incorrect dates for earliest use of words
• History of obsolete senses of words often omitted
• Inadequate distinction among synonyms
• Insufficient use of good illustrative quotations
• Space wasted on inappropriate or redundant content. This article deals with the general meaning of the term "synonym"

Trench suggested that a new, truly comprehensive dictionary was needed. Volunteer readers would copy to quotation slips passages illustrating actual word usages, then post them to the dictionary editor. In 1858, the Society agreed to the project in principle, with the title "A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles" (NED).

The first editors

Trench played the key role in the project's first months, but his ecclesiastical career meant that he could not give the dictionary project the time required, easily ten years; he withdrew, and Herbert Coleridge became the first editor. Ecclesiology (from Greek grc ἐκκλησίᾱ ekklēsiā, "congregation church" and grc -λογία -logia) is the study of the

On 12 May 1860, Coleridge's dictionary plan was published, and research started. Events 1191 - Richard I of England marries Berengaria of Navarre. Year 1860 ( MDCCLX) was a Leap year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian Calendar (or a Leap year starting His house was the first editorial office. He arrayed 100,000 quotation slips in a 54-pigeon-hole grid. In April 1861, the group published the first sample pages; later that month, the thirty-one-year old Coleridge died of tuberculosis. Tuberculosis (abbreviated as TB for tubercle bacillus or T u' b' erculosis Bacillus --> is a common

Furnivall then became editor; he was enthusiastic and knowledgeable, yet temperamentally ill-suited for the work. Recruited assistants handled two tons of quotation slips and other materials. Furnivall understood the need for an efficient excerpting system, and instituted several prefatory projects. In 1864, he founded the Early English Text Society, and in 1865, he founded the Chaucer Society for preparing general benefit editions of immediate value to the dictionary project. The compilation lasted 21 years.

In the 1870s, Furnivall unsuccessfully recruited both Henry Sweet and Henry Nicol to succeed him. Henry Sweet (1845-1912 was an English philologist, phonetician and Grammarian As a philologist he specialized in the Germanic languages He then approached James Murray, who accepted the post of editor. James Augustus Henry Murray ( February 7, 1837 – July 26, 1915) was a Scottish Lexicographer and Philologist Murray's effort and association with the dictionary led the Oxford English Dictionary to be dubbed Murray's Dictionary.

Despite the participation of some 800 volunteer readers, the technology of paper-and-ink was the major drawback regarding the arbitrary choices of relatively untrained volunteers about "what to read and select" and "what to discard. " A prolific contributor, W. C. Minor, Murray learned, was an inmate of the Broadmoor Asylum for the Criminally Insane. William Chester Minor, also known as W C Minor (June 1834 &ndash March 26, 1920) was an American surgeon who made many scholarly Broadmoor Hospital is a high-security Psychiatric hospital at Crowthorne in Berkshire, England. As months and years elapsed, the project languished. Furnivall lost track of assistants; some presumed the project abandoned; some died, their quotation slips unreturned to the editor. Later, the letter "H" quotation slips sack was found in Tuscany; others slips were burned as waste paper tinder. Tuscany (Toscana is a region in Italy. It has an area of 22990 km² and a population of about 3 Tinder is easily combustible material used to ignite Fires by rudimentary methods

The Oxford editors

Simultaneously, the Philological Society was concerned with the process of publishing such an immense book. Although they had pages printed by publishers, no publication agreement was reached; both the Cambridge University Press and the Oxford University Press were approached. Cambridge University Press (known colloquially as CUP is a Publisher given a Royal Charter by Henry VIII in 1534 Finally, in 1879, after two years' negotiating by Sweet, Furnivall, and Murray, the OUP agreed to publish the dictionary and to pay the editor, Murray, who was also the Philological Society president. The dictionary was to be published as interval fascicles, with the final form in four 6,400-page volumes. They hoped to finish the project in ten years.

Murray started the project, ably tackling its true scale. He chose to work in a corrugated iron outbuilding, the "Scriptorium," which was lined with wooden planks, book shelves, and 1,029 pigeon-holes for the quotation slips. Corrugated galvanised iron (colloquially corrugated iron, commonly abbreviated CGI is a Building material composed of sheets of hot-dip galvanised Scriptorium, literally "a place for writing" is commonly used to refer to a room in medieval European Monasteries devoted to the copying of manuscripts by monastic Murray now tracked and regathered Furnivall's collection of quotation slips, finding them inadequate. Readers had tended to concentrate on rare, interesting words rather than common usages: for instance, there were ten times more quotations for abusion than for abuse. He appealed for readers in newspapers distributed to bookshops and libraries; readers were specifically asked to report "as many quotations as you can for ordinary words" and for words that were "rare, obsolete, old-fashioned, new, peculiar or used in a peculiar way. " Murray had American philologist and liberal-arts-college professor Francis March manage the collection in North America; 1,000 daily quotation slips arrived to the Scriptorium, and by 1882, there 3,500,000. Liberal arts colleges are primarily colleges with an emphasis upon Undergraduate study in the Liberal arts. Francis Andrew March (October 25 1825 in Sutton Massachusetts &ndashSeptember 9 1911 in Easton Pennsylvania) was an American Polymath, academic

The first Dictionary fascicle was published on 1 February 1884 — twenty-three years after Coleridge's sample pages. Events 1327 - Teenaged Edward III is crowned King of England, but the country is ruled by his mother Queen Year 1884 ( MDCCCLXXXIV) was a Leap year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Leap year The full title was A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles; Founded Mainly on the Materials Collected by The Philological Society; the 352-page volume, words from A to Ant, cost 12s. The shilling is a unit of Currency used in current and former Commonwealth countries and was continued to be used in countries that left the commonwealth 6d or U. A penny (pl pence or pennies) is a Coin or a unit of Currency used in several English -speaking countries S. $3. 25. The total sales were a disappointing 4,000 copies.

The OUP saw it would take too long to complete the work with unrevised editorial arrangements. Accordingly, new assistants were hired and made two new demands on Murray. The first was that he move from Mill Hill to Oxford; he did, in 1885. Mill Hill is a place in the London Borough of Barnet. It is a suburb situated 9 miles (14 Oxford is currently bidding for the 2010 Wikimania Conference Oxford () is a city, and the County town of Oxfordshire, Murray had his Scriptorium built on his property, and the Post Office installed a pillar box before his house. A pillar box is a free-standing Post box, in the United Kingdom, where Mail is deposited to be collected by the Royal Mail and forwarded to the

The 78 Banbury Road, Oxford, house, erstwhile residence of James Murray, Editor of the Oxford English Dictionary. Oxford is currently bidding for the 2010 Wikimania Conference Oxford () is a city, and the County town of Oxfordshire, James Augustus Henry Murray ( February 7, 1837 – July 26, 1915) was a Scottish Lexicographer and Philologist

Murray resisted the second demand: if he could not meet schedule, he must hire a second, senior editor to work parallel him, outside his supervision, working on words from elsewhere in the alphabet. Murray did not want to share the work, feeling he would accelerate his work pace with experience. That was not so, and Philip Gell of the OUP forced the promotion of Murray's assistant Henry Bradley (hired by Murray in 1884) who worked independently in the British Museum, London, in 1888. Henry Bradley (1845 &ndash 1923 was a British Philologist and Lexicographer of the Victorian era who succeeded James Murray as senior editor The British Museum is a Museum of human history and culture in London. In 1896 Bradley moved to work at Oxford University.

Gell continued harassing Murray and Bradley with the business concerns of containing costs and speedy production to where the project's collapse seemed likely; newspapers reported the harassment, and public opinion backed the editors. Gell was fired, and the University reversed his cost policies. If the editors felt that the Dictionary would have to grow larger, it would; it was an important work, and worth the time and money to properly finish. Neither Murray nor Bradley lived to see it. Murray died in 1915, having been responsible for words starting with A-D, H-K, O-P and T, nearly half the finished dictionary; Bradley died in 1923, having completed E-G, L-M, S-Sh, St and W-We. By then two, additional editors were promoted from assistant work to independent work, continuing without much trouble. William Craigie, starting in 1901, was responsible for N, Q-R, Si-Sq, U-V and Wo-Wy; whereas previously the OUP had thought London too far from Oxford for the editors to work in the City, after 1925 Craigie worked on the dictionary in Chicago, where he was a professor. Sir William Alexander Craigie ( August 13 1867 &ndash September 2 1957) was a philologist and a Lexicographer. Chicago (ʃɪˈkɑːgoʊ is the largest City by population in the state of Illinois and the American Midwest of the United States. The fourth editor was C. T. Onions, who, starting in 1914, compiled the remaining ranges, Su-Sz, Wh-Wo and X-Z. Charles Talbut Onions ( CT Onions) (1873-1965 was an English Grammarian and Lexicographer.

Fascicles

By early 1894 a total of 11 fascicles had been published, or about one per year: four for A-B, five for C, and two for E. Of these, eight were 352 pages long, while the last one in each group was shorter to end at the letter break (which would eventually become a volume break). At this point it was decided to publish the work in smaller and more frequent installments: once every three months, beginning in 1895, there would now be a fascicle of 64 pages, priced at 2s. 6d. or $1 U. S. If enough material was ready, 128 or even 192 pages would be published together. This pace was maintained until World War I forced reductions in staff. World War I (abbreviated WWI; also known as the First World War, the Great War, and the War to End All Each time enough consecutive pages were available, the same material was also published in the original larger fascicles.

Also in 1895, the title Oxford English Dictionary (OED) was first used. It then appeared only on the outer covers of the fascicles; the original title was still the official one and was used everywhere else.

The 125th and last fascicle, covering words from Wise to the end of W, was published on April 19, 1928, and the full Dictionary in bound volumes followed immediately. Events 1012 - Martyrdom of Alphege in Greenwich London. 1529 - At the Second Diet of Speyer Year 1928 ( MCMXXVIII) was a Leap year starting on Sunday (link will display full calendar of the Gregorian calendar.

First Edition and First Supplement

It had been planned to publish the New English Dictionary in ten volumes, starting with A, C, D, F, H, L, O, Q, Si, and Ti; but as the project proceeded, the later volumes became larger and larger. While the full 1928 edition officially retained the intended numbering, Volumes IX and X were published as two "half-volumes" each, split at Su and V respectively. The entire edition was also available as a set of 20 half-volumes, with two choices of binding. The price was 50 or 55 guineas (£52. The guinea coin of 1663 was the first English machine-struck Gold coin. 10s or £57. 15s) depending on the format and binding. The dictionary covered 414,825 words backed by five million quotations, of which some two million were actually printed in the dictionary text.

It had been 44 years since the publication of A-Ant and, of course, the English language had continued to develop and change, so that by this time the early volumes were noticeably out of date. The solution was for the same teams to produce a Supplement, listing all words and senses that had developed since the relevant pages were first printed; this also gave the opportunity to correct any errors or omissions. Purchasers of the 1928 edition were promised a free copy of the supplement when it appeared.

The supplement was again produced by two editors working in parallel. Craigie, now residing in the United States, did most of the research on American English usages; he also edited L-R and U-Z, while Onions did A-K and S-T. The United States of America —commonly referred to as the Phonology North American English regional phonology In many ways compared to English English, North American English is conservative in its Phonology. The work took another five years.

In 1933 the entire dictionary was reissued, now officially under the title of Oxford English Dictionary for the first time. The volumes after the first six were adjusted to equalize them somewhat and to eliminate the "half-volume" numbering: the main dictionary now consisted of 12 volumes, numbered as such, and starting at A, C, D, F, H, L, N, Poyesye, S, Sole, T, and V. The supplement was included as the 13th volume. The price of the dictionary was reduced to 20 guineas (£21).

Second Supplement and Second Edition

In 1933 Oxford University had finally put the Dictionary to rest; all work ended, and the quotation slips went into storage. The University of Oxford (informally "Oxford University" or simply "Oxford" located in the city of Oxford, Oxfordshire, England is the However, the English language continued to change, and by the time 20 years had passed, the Dictionary was outdated.

There were three possible ways to update it. The cheapest would have been to leave the existing work alone and simply compile a new supplement of perhaps one or two volumes; but then anyone looking for a word or sense and unsure of its age would have to look in three different places. The most convenient choice for the user would have been for the entire dictionary to be re-edited and retypeset, with each change included in its proper alphabetical place; but this would have been the most expensive option, with perhaps 15 volumes required to be produced. Typesetting involves the presentation of textual material in graphic form on Paper or some other medium. The OUP chose a middle approach: combining the new material with the existing supplement to form a larger replacement supplement.

Robert Burchfield was hired in 1957 to edit the second supplement; Onions, who turned 84 that year, was still able to make some contributions as well. Robert William Burchfield CNZM CBE ( 27 January 1923 &ndash 5 July 2004)was a scholar writer and Lexicographer. Charles Talbut Onions ( CT Onions) (1873-1965 was an English Grammarian and Lexicographer. Burchfield emphasized the inclusion of modern-day language, and through the supplement the dictionary was expanded to include a wealth of new words from the burgeoning fields of science and technology, as well as popular culture and colloquial speech. Burchfield also broadened the scope to include developments of the language in English-speaking regions beyond the United Kingdom, including North America, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, India, Pakistan, and the Caribbean. The work was expected to take seven to ten years. It actually took 29 years, by which time the new supplement (OEDS) had grown to four volumes, starting with A, H, O and Sea. They were published in 1972, 1976, 1982, and 1986 respectively, bringing the complete dictionary to 16 volumes, or 17 counting the first supplement.

By this time it was clear that the full text of the Dictionary would now need to be computerized. Achieving this would require retyping it once, but thereafter it would always be accessible for computer searching — as well as for whatever new editions of the dictionary might be desired, starting with an integration of the supplementary volumes and the main text. Preparation for this process began in 1983, and editorial work started the following year under the administrative direction of Timothy J. Benbow, with John A. Simpson and Edmund S. John (Andrew Simpson (born 13 October, 1953, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire is a British lexicographer and senior editor of the Oxford C. Weiner as co-editors.

Editing an entry of the NOED using LEXX

And so the New Oxford English Dictionary (NOED) project began. More than 120 keyboarders of International Computaprint Corporation in Tampa, Florida, and Fort Washington, Pennsylvania, USA, started keying in over 350,000,000 characters, their work checked by 55 proof-readers in England. Retyping the text alone was not sufficient; all the information represented by the complex typography of the original dictionary had to be retained, which was done by marking up the content in SGML. Typography is the art and techniques of arranging type, Type design, and modifying type Glyphs Type glyphs are created and modified using a variety A markup language is an Artificial language using a set of annotations to text that give instructions regarding the structure of text or how it is to be displayed The Standard Generalized Markup Language ( ISO 88791986 SGML) is an ISO Standard Metalanguage in which one can define Markup languages A specialized search engine and display software were also needed to access it. Under a 1985 agreement, some of this software work was done at the University of Waterloo, Canada, at the Centre for the New Oxford English Dictionary, led by F. The University of Waterloo (also referred to as UW and Waterloo) is a comprehensive Public university in the city of Waterloo, Ontario W. Tompa and Gaston Gonnet; this search technology went on to become the basis for the Open Text Corporation. Gaston H Gonnet is a Uruguayan Computer scientist and entrepreneur Open Text Corporation () is a Canadian high-tech company based in Waterloo Ontario, Canada. Computer hardware, database and other software, development managers, and programmers for the project were donated by the British subsidiary of IBM; the colour syntax-directed editor for the project, LEXX, was written by Mike Cowlishaw of IBM. International Business Machines Corporation abbreviated IBM and nicknamed "Big Blue", is a multinational Computer Technology Mike Cowlishaw is an IBM Fellow based at IBM UK’s Warwick location a Visiting Professor at the Department of Computer Science at the University of Warwick The University of Waterloo, in Canada, volunteered to design the database. A. Walton Litz, an English professor at Princeton University who served on the Oxford University Press advisory council, told Paul Gray of TIME (March 27, 1989), "I've never been associated with a project, I've never even heard of a project, that was so incredibly complicated and that met every deadline. Time (trademarked in capitals as TIME) is a weekly American Newsmagazine, similar to Newsweek and Events 196 BC - Ptolemy V ascends to the throne of Egypt. 1309 - Pope Clement V excommunicates Year 1989 ( MCMLXXXIX) was a Common year starting on Sunday (link displays 1989 Gregorian calendar) "

By 1989 the NOED project had achieved its primary goals, and the editors, working online, had successfully combined the original text, Burchfield's supplement, and a small amount of newer material, into a single unified dictionary. The word "new" was again dropped from the name, and the Second Edition of the OED, or the OED2, was published. (The first edition retronymically became the OED1. A retronym is a type of Neologism coined for an old object or concept whose original name has come to be used for something else is no longer unique or is otherwise inappropriate )

The OED2 was printed in 20 volumes. For the first time, there was no attempt to start them on letter boundaries, and they were made roughly equal in size. The 20 volumes started with A, B. B. C. , Cham, Creel, Dvandva, Follow, Hat, Interval, Look, Moul, Ow, Poise, Quemadero, Rob, Ser, Soot, Su, Thru, Unemancipated, and Wave.

Although the content of the OED2 is mostly just a reorganization of the earlier corpus, the retypesetting provided an opportunity for two long-needed format changes. The headword of each entry was no longer capitalized, allowing the user to readily see those words that actually require a capital letter. Also, whereas Murray had devised his own notation for pronunciation, there being no standard available at the time, the OED2 adopted the modern International Phonetic Alphabet. The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA is a system of phonetic notation based on the Latin alphabet, devised by the International Phonetic Unlike the earlier edition, all foreign alphabets except Greek were transliterated.

When the print version of the second edition was published in 1989, the response was enthusiastic. The author Anthony Burgess declared it "the greatest publishing event of the century," as quoted by Dan Fisher of the Los Angeles Times (March 25, 1989). Events 1199 - Richard I is wounded by a crossbow bolt while fighting France which leads to his death on April 6. Year 1989 ( MCMLXXXIX) was a Common year starting on Sunday (link displays 1989 Gregorian calendar) TIME dubbed the book "a scholarly Everest," and Richard Boston, writing for the London Guardian (March 24, 1989), called it "one of the wonders of the world. Richard Boston ( 29 December 1938 &ndash 22 December 2006) was an English Journalist Events 1401 - Mongol emperor Timur sacks Damascus. 1603 - James VI of Scotland Year 1989 ( MCMLXXXIX) was a Common year starting on Sunday (link displays 1989 Gregorian calendar) "

New material was published in the Oxford English Dictionary Additions Series, which consisted of two small volumes in 1993, and a third in 1997, bringing the dictionary to a total of 23 volumes. Each of the supplements added about 3,000 new definitions. However, no more Additions volumes are planned, and it is not expected that any part of the Third Edition, or OED3, will be printed in fascicles.

Compact editions

In 1971, the 13-volume OED1 (1933) was reprinted as a two-volume, Compact Edition, done by photographically reducing each page to one-half its linear dimensions; each compact edition page held four OED1 pages in a four-up ("4-up") format. The two volume letters were A and P; the Supplement was at the second volume's end.

The Compact Edition included, in a small slip-case drawer, a magnifying glass to help in reading reduced type. magnifying glass (called a hand lens in laboratory contexts is a convex lens which is used to produce a magnified Image of an object Many copies were inexpensively distributed through book clubs. A book sales club is a subscription-based method of selling and purchasing books In 1987, the second Supplement was published as a third volume to the Compact Edition. In 1991, for the OED2, the compact edition format was re-sized to one-third of original linear dimensions, a nine-up ("9-up") format requiring greater magnification, but allowing publication of a single-volume dictionary. After these volumes were published, though, book club offers commonly continued to sell the two-volume 1971 Compact Edition. It is praised by some for its better readability (larger text) and the convenience of its two-volume format.

Electronic versions

Screenshot of the first CD-ROM edition of the OED

Once the text of the dictionary was digitized and online, it was also available to be published on CD-ROM. CD-ROM (an initialism of "Compact Disc Read-Only Memory " is a pre-pressed Compact Disc that contains data accessible to but not writable The text of the First Edition was made available in 1988. Afterward, three versions of the second edition were issued. Version 1 (1992) was identical in content to the printed Second Edition, and the CD itself was not copy-protected. Version 2 (1999) had some additions to the corpus, and updated software with improved searching features, but it had clumsy copy-protection that made it difficult to use and would even cause the program to deny use to OUP staff in the midst of demonstrating the product. Version 3 was released in 2002 with additional words and software improvements, though its copy-protection remained as unforgiving as that of the earlier version.

The current and only edition of the OED on CD available for purchase from Oxford University Press, Version 3. 1. 1 (2007), includes a return to the less restrictive nature of Version 1, with support for hard disk installation, so that the user does not have to insert the CD to use the dictionary. It has been reported^[2][3] that this version will work on operating systems other than Microsoft Windows, using emulation programs. Microsoft Windows is a series of Software Operating systems and Graphical user interfaces produced by Microsoft. An emulator duplicates (provides an emulation of the functions of one System using a different system so that the second system behaves like (and appears to

Screenshot of OED Online

On March 14, 2000, the Oxford English Dictionary Online (OED Online) became available to subscribers. Events 1489 - The Queen of Cyprus, Catherine Cornaro, sells her kingdom to Venice. 2000 ( MM) was a Leap year that started on Saturday of the Common Era, in accordance with the Gregorian calendar. ^[4] The online database contains the entire OED2 and is updated quarterly with revisions that will be included in the OED3 (see below). The online edition is the most up-to-date version of the dictionary available.

As the price for an individual to use this edition, even after a reduction in 2004, is £195 or $295 US every year, most subscribers are large organizations such as universities. Some of them do not use the Oxford English Dictionary Online portal and have legally downloaded the entire database into their organization's computers. Some public libraries and companies have subscribed as well, including, in March and April 2006, most public libraries in England and Wales^[5] and New Zealand;^[6][7] any person belonging to a library subscribing to the service is able to use the service from their own home.

Another method of payment was also introduced in 2004, offering residents of North or South America the opportunity to pay $29. 95 US a month to access the online site.

Third Edition

The planned Third Edition, or OED3, is intended as a nearly complete overhaul of the work. Each word is being examined and revised to improve the accuracy of the definitions, derivations, pronunciations, and historical quotations—a task requiring the efforts of a staff consisting of more than 300 scholars, researchers, readers, and consultants, and projected to cost about $55 million. The end result is expected to double the overall length of the text. The style of the dictionary will also change slightly. The original text was more literary, in that most of the quotations were taken from novels, plays, and other literary sources. The new edition, however, will reference all manner of printed resources, such as cookbooks, wills, technical manuals, specialist journals, and rock lyrics. The pace of inclusion of new words has been increased to the rate of about 4,000 a year. The estimated date of completion is 2037. ^[8][9]

New content can be viewed through the OED Online or on the periodically updated CD-ROM edition. It is possible that the OED3 will never be printed conventionally, but will be available only electronically. That will be a decision for the future, when it is nearer completion.

As of 1993, John Simpson is the Chief Editor. John (Andrew Simpson (born 13 October, 1953, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire is a British lexicographer and senior editor of the Oxford Since the first work by each editor tends to require more revision than his later, more polished work, it was decided to balance out this effect by performing the early, and perhaps itself less polished, work of the current revision pass at a letter other than A. Accordingly, the main work of the OED3 has been proceeding in sequence from the letter M. When the OED Online was launched in March 2000, it included the first batch of revised entries (officially described as draft entries), stretching from M to mahurat, and successive sections of text have since been released on a quarterly basis; by June 2007, the revised section had reached ramvert. As new work is done on words in other parts of the alphabet, this is also included in each quarterly release. In March 2008, the editors announced that they would alternate each quarter between moving forward in the alphabet as before and updating "key English words from across the alphabet, along with the other words which make up the alphabetical cluster surrounding them. "

The production of the new edition takes full advantage of computers, particularly since the June 2005 inauguration of the whimsically named "Perfect All-Singing All-Dancing Editorial and Notation Application", or "Pasadena. The musical film is a Film genre in which several Songs sung by the characters are interwoven into the narrative A text editor is a type of program used for editing plain Text files Text editors are often provided with Operating systems or software development Annotation is add on information asserted with a particular point in a Document or other piece of information Application software is a subclass of Computer software that employs the capabilities of a computer directly and thoroughly to a task that the user wishes to perform " With this XML-based system, the attention of lexicographers can be directed more to matters of content than to presentation issues such as the numbering of definitions. Don't change "Extensible" The new system has also simplified the use of the quotations database, and enabled staff in New York to work directly on the Dictionary in the same way as their Oxford-based counterparts. ^[10]

Other important computer uses include internet searches for evidence of current usage, and e-mail submissions of quotations by readers and the general public.

Wordhunt was a 2005 appeal to the general public for help in providing citations for 50 selected recent words, and produced antedatings for many. Wordhunt was a national appeal run by the Oxford English Dictionary, looking for earlier evidence of the use of 40 words and phrases in the English language. In banking antedated refers to Cheques which have been written by the maker, and dated at some point in the past The results were reported in a BBC TV series, Balderdash and Piffle. Balderdash and Piffle is a British Television programme made by Takeaway Media for the BBC. The OED’s small army of devoted readers continue to contribute quotations; the department currently receives about 200,000 a year.

Spelling

Main article: Oxford spelling

The OED lists British headword spellings (e. Oxford spelling (or Oxford English spelling) is the Spelling used in the editorial practice of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED and other g. labour, centre) with variants following (labor, center, etc. ). For the suffix more commonly spelt -ise in British English, OUP policy dictates a preference for the spelling -ize, e. g. realize vs realise and globalization vs globalisation. The rationale is partly linguistic, that the English suffix mainly derives from the Greek suffix -ιζειν, (-izo), or the Latin -izāre; however, -ze is also an Americanism in the fact that the -ze suffix has crept into words where it did not originally belong, as with analyse (British English), which is spelt analyze in American English [1]. See also -ise / -ize at American and British English spelling differences. American and British English spelling differences are one aspect of American and British English differences.

The sentence "The group analysed labour statistics published by the organization" is an example of OUP practice. This spelling (indicated with the registered IANA language tag en-GB-oed) is used by the United Nations, the World Trade Organization, the International Organization for Standardization, and many British academic publications, such as Nature, the Biochemical Journal, and The Times Literary Supplement. The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA is the entity that oversees global IP address allocation, DNS root zone management, media types The United Nations ( UN) is an International organization whose stated aims are to facilitate cooperation in International law, International security Nature is a prominent Scientific journal, first published on 4 November 1869 The Biochemical Journal ( Biochem J or BJ is a peer-reviewed academic journal which covers all aspects of Biochemistry, as well as cell and Molecular The Times Literary Supplement (or TLS, on the front page from 1969 is a weekly literary review published in London by News International

Criticisms

Despite its claim to authoritativeness, the Oxford English Dictionary has been criticized from various angles. Indeed, it has become a target precisely because of its massiveness, its claims to authority, and, above all, its influence. In his review of the 1982 supplement, University of Oxford linguist Roy Harris writes that criticizing the OED is extremely difficult because "one is dealing not just with a dictionary but with a national institution," one that "has become, like the English monarchy, virtually immune from criticism in principle. Roy Harris (born 1931) is Emeritus Professor of General Linguistics in the University of Oxford and Honorary Fellow of St Edmund Hall. " ^[11] Harris criticizes what he sees as the "black-and-white lexicography" of the Dictionary, by which he means its reliance upon printed language over spoken—and then, only privileged forms of printing. He notes that, while neologisms from respected "literary" authors like Samuel Beckett and Virginia Woolf are included, usage of words in newspapers or other, less "respectable" sources holds less sway, though they may actually be more valid in common usage. Samuel Barclay Beckett (13 April 1906 – 22 December 1989 was an Irish Writer, Dramatist and poet (Adeline Virginia Woolf (née Stephen; 25 January 1882 – 28 March 1941 was an English Novelist and Essayist, regarded as one of the foremost ^[12] He writes that the OED’s "[b]lack-and-white lexicography is also black-and-white in that it takes upon itself to pronounce authoritatively on the rights and wrongs of usage,"^[13] faulting the Dictionary’s prescriptive, rather than descriptive, usage. In Linguistics, prescription can refer both to the codification and the enforcement of rules governing how a language is to be used In Linguistics, prescription can refer both to the codification and the enforcement of rules governing how a language is to be used To Harris, this prescriptive classification of certain usages as "erroneous" and the complete omission of various forms and usages cumulatively represent the "social bias[es]" of the (presumably well-educated and wealthy) compilers. ^[14] Harris also faults the editors' "donnish conservatism" and their adherence to prudish Victorian morals, citing as an example the non-inclusion of "various centuries-old 'four-letter words'" until 1972. ^[15]

More recently, John Willinsky has criticized the OED in his Empire of Words: The Reign of the Oxford English Dictionary. John Willinsky (born 1950) is a Canadian educator activist and author ^[16]

Miscellanea

• J. R. R. Tolkien once was an OED employee researching etymologies of the Waggle to Warlock range ^[17]; he parodied the principal editors as "The Four Wise Clerks of Oxenford" in the story Farmer Giles of Ham. "Farmer Giles of Ham" is a Novella written by J R R Tolkien in 1937 and published in 1949
• Julian Barnes also was an employee; he disliked the work. Julian Patrick Barnes (born January 19, 1946 in Leicester, England) is a contemporary English Writer.
• The early modern English prose of Sir Thomas Browne is the most frequently quoted source of neologisms. Sir Thomas Browne ( October 19, 1605 &ndash October 19, 1682) was an English author of varied works which disclose his wide learning A neologism (from Greek neo = "new" + logos = "word" is a word that although devised relatively recently in a specific time period has been
• William Shakespeare is the most-quoted writer, with Hamlet his most-quoted work. William Shakespeare ( baptised Hamlet is a Tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1599 and 1601
• George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans) is the most-quoted woman. Mary Ann (Marian Evans ( 22 November 1819 – 22 December 1880) better known by her Pen name George Eliot, was an
• Collectively, translations of the Bible make it the most-quoted work; the most-quoted single work is Cursor Mundi. Etymology According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, the word bible is from Latin biblia, traced from the same word through Medieval Latin and Late Latin Cursor Mundi (Latin for "Runner of the World" is an anonymous Middle-English religious poem of nearly 30000 lines written around 1300 AD.
• Dr. W. C. Minor was one of the most prolific early contributors as a reader. William Chester Minor, also known as W C Minor (June 1834 &ndash March 26, 1920) was an American surgeon who made many scholarly Whilst imprisoned in a criminal lunatic asylum, he invented his own quotation-tracking system, so that he could then submit his slips upon the editors' request.
• Tim Bray, co-creator of the Extensible Markup Language (XML), credits the OED as the developing inspiration of that web language. Timothy William Bray is a Canadian software developer and entrepreneur Don't change "Extensible"
• The longest entry in the OED2 was for the verb set, which required 60,000 words to describe some 430 senses. As entries began to be revised for the OED3 in sequence starting from M, the longest entry became make in 2000, then put in 2007. [2] Set is expected to regain its place as the longest entry once it too is revised.
• It would take a person 120 years to type the 59 million words of the OED second edition and 60 years to proofread it, and 540 MB to electronically store it. A megabyte is a unit of Information or Computer storage equal to either 106 (1000000 Bytes or 220 (1048576 bytes depending on [3]
• The British quiz show Countdown has awarded the leather-bound complete version to the champions of each series since its inception in 1982. Countdown is a British Game show presented by Des O'Connor and Carol Vorderman, with regular lexicographer Susie Dent This is a list of champions on the Game show Countdown. These are players who have won up to eight games and scored enough points to qualify for their series'
• The taboo words fuck and cunt did not appear in any general English dictionary between 1795 and 1965; they first appeared in the OED in 1972. Fuck is an English Word that as a Verb, means "to have Sexual intercourse " Cunt ( IPA:/kʌnt/ is an English language Vulgarism referring generally to the Female genitalia.
• While large, the OED is not the world's largest dictionary; that distinction belongs to the Dutch dictionary Woordenboek der Nederlandsche Taal, which has similar aims to the OED, and took twice as long to complete. Woordenboek der Nederlandsche Taal (English "Dictionary of the Dutch language" is a Dictionary of the Dutch language and the largest dictionary

See also

• Shorter Oxford English Dictionary
• Oxford Dictionary of English
• Concise Oxford English Dictionary
• Compact Oxford English Dictionary of Current English
• Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary
• New Oxford American Dictionary
• Canadian Oxford Dictionary

Notes

References

• Creaser, Wanda. Review of Willinsky, John, Empire of Words: The Reign of the Oxford English Dictionary. Rocky Mountain Review of Language and Literature 50:1 (1996): 108-109. JSTOR. 7 April 2008. <http://www.jstor.org.floyd.lib.umn.edu/stable/1348362>
• Harris, Roy. "The History Men. " Times Literary Supplement 3 Sept. 1982: 935-936.

Further reading

• Oxford English Dictionary, second edition, edited by John Simpson and Edmund Weiner, Clarendon Press, 1989, twenty volumes, hardcover, ISBN 0-19-861186-2.
• Caught in the Web of Words: J. A. H. Murray and the Oxford English Dictionary, by K. M. Elisabeth Murray, Oxford University Press and Yale University Press, 1977; new edition 2001, Yale University Press, trade paperback, ISBN 0-300-08919-8.
• Empire of Words: The Reign of the Oxford English Dictionary, by John Willinsky, Princeton University Press, 1995, hardcover, ISBN 0-691-03719-1.
• The Meaning of Everything: The Story of the Oxford English Dictionary, Simon Winchester, Oxford University Press, 2003, hardcover, ISBN 0-19-860702-4. Simon Winchester OBE (born September 28, 1944) is a British Author and Journalist who lives in the United States and
• (UK title) The Surgeon of Crowthorne / (US title) The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of The Oxford English Dictionary, by Simon Winchester; see The Surgeon of Crowthorne for full details of the various editions. The Surgeon of Crowthorne A Tale of Murder Madness and the Love of Words is a Book by Simon Winchester first published in 1998
• Lost for Words: The Hidden History of the Oxford English Dictionary, by Lynda Mugglestone, Yale University Press, 2005, hardcover, ISBN 0-300-10699-8.
• The Ring of Words: Tolkien and the Oxford English Dictionary, by Peter Gilliver, Jeremy Marshall, and Edmund Weiner, Oxford University Press, 2006, hardcover, ISBN 0-19-861069-6.
• Treasure-House of the Language: the Living OED, Charlotte Brewer, Yale University Press, 2007, hardcover, ISBN 978-0-300-12429-3.

• "Cyber-Neologoliferation," by James Gleick, The New York Times Magazine, November 5, 2006. James Gleick (born August 1, 1954) is an author journalist and biographer whose books explore the cultural ramifications of science and technology The New York Times Magazine is a supplement to the Sunday The New York Times newspaper Events 1499 - Publication of the Catholicon in Treguier ( Brittany) Year 2006 ( MMVI) was a Common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar.

For a wider view of the history of dictionaries see:

• Chasing the Sun: Dictionary Makers and the Dictionaries They Made, by Jonathon Green, Jonathan Cape, 1996, hardcover, ISBN 0-224-04010-3.

External links

• The Oxford English Dictionary's official website
  • Their Archive of documents (as page images), which includes Trench's original "Deficiencies in our English Dictionaries" paper and Murray's original appeal for readers [4]
  • Their page of OED statistics, and another such page. Richard Chenevix Trench (9 September 1807 – 28 March 1886 was an Anglican Archbishop and Poet. James Augustus Henry Murray ( February 7, 1837 – July 26, 1915) was a Scottish Lexicographer and Philologist
  • Two sample pagesPDF (1. 54 MiB) from the OED. A mebibyte (a contraction of me ga bi nary byte) is a unit of Information or Computer storage, abbreviated MiB.
  • Their page on Tolkien
  • AskOxford Compact Oxford English Dictionary Search
• Examining the OED: Charlotte Brewer's analysis of the principles and practices used by OED editors
• The OED Meets Cyberspace: James Gleick's 2006 article. James Gleick (born August 1, 1954) is an author journalist and biographer whose books explore the cultural ramifications of science and technology
• The New English Dictionary on Historical Principles is available for download from the Internet Archive:
  • Volume 1: Complete
  • Volume 2: Complete
  • Volume 3: Complete
  • Volume 4: Complete
  • Volume 5: Complete
  • Volume 6: Part 1 Part 2
  • Volume 7: Complete
  • Volume 8: Part 1 Part 2
  • Volume 9: Part 1 Part 2
  • Volume 10: Part 1 Part 2
• Simon Winchester. The Internet Archive ( IA) is a Nonprofit organization dedicated to maintaining an on-line Library and archive of Web and Simon Winchester OBE (born September 28, 1944) is a British Author and Journalist who lives in the United States and History of the Oxford English Dictionary TVOntario Big Ideas. TVOntario, often referred to only as TVO, ( Call signs CICA, CICE, CICO) is a publicly-funded educational English language Big Ideas is a Canadian television series produced and broadcast by TVOntario, on the air since 2001. (2007-05-27). Year 2007 ( MMVII) was a Common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. Events 927 - Simeon the Great, Tsar of Bulgaria, dies 1120 - Richard III of Capua is anointed Podcast accessed on 2007-12-01. Year 2007 ( MMVII) was a Common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. Events 800 - Charlemagne judges the accusations against Pope Leo III in the Vatican
• Bibliography of "[c]ritical assessments of OED or accounts of its history", from Charlotte Brewer's Examining the OED project