The New-Look OED: The End of the Entry

In July 2023 OUP launched a brand new design and search/browse interface to the Oxford English Dictionary Online at OED.com. Long in the works, the new site presents the venerable dictionary, which is now about halfway revised from its previous incarnations (be they 1928, 1933, 1972, 1989, etc.), in a radically new way.

It’s… not great.

It’s not easy for me to say this, since I know a lot of hard work by good people who care about the dictionary has gone into this redesign. And listen – it may well be that I’m wrong and this site is the best way to bring the dictionary and its treasures to future readers. But from my perspective the new OED Online tosses a lot that was great, and unique, and real, about OED, while offering little new of value. Read More →

30.07.2023 – 10:09 | By D-AW | Posted in Digital Humanities, Language and Literature in Society, Lexicography, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , | Comments (7)

Published: Women’s Words in the OED

Now published in Review of English Studies (Advance Access), an article by me on the ways in which the Oxford English Dictionary has treated texts authored by women in its marshalling of citation evidence for English language lexis, from the first edition (1884-1928) to the current OED3 revision (2000-). The approach I take is driven […]

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03.06.2023 – 15:53 | By D-AW | Posted in Digital Humanities, Language and Literature in Society, Lexicography | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments (0)

OED Work on “Writing and Editing” Podcast

I talked with Wayne Jones the other day about my work on the Oxford English Dictionary. The result was this short piece on my plans for an updated OED bibliography and Variorum: 182. Enhancing the Oxford English Dictionary

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28.05.2023 – 08:48 | By D-AW | Posted in Digital Humanities, Language and Literature in Society, Lexicography | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments (14)

Money for a Variorum OED & OED Bibliography

Over the past many moons I’ve posted from time to time about my researches into the Oxford English Dictionary, and some of the interesting or puzzling or maddening or heartening things I’ve found there. A big theme lately has been the need for a Variorum, or track-changes, OED, which would allow researchers to compare the […]

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05.11.2022 – 16:08 | By D-AW | Posted in Digital Humanities, Language and Literature in Society, Lexicography | Tagged , , , , , | Comments (0)

Another Review of The Life of Words

In the July 2022 issue of Modern Language Review, a short review by Mia Gaudern. Gaudern is the author of the very good The Etymological Poetry of W. H. Auden, J. H. Prynne, and Paul Muldoon (OUP, 2020), published virtually at the same time by the same press, so she very much knows her stuff […]

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20.07.2022 – 11:56 | By D-AW | Posted in Criticism, Etymology, Poetry | Tagged , , , | Comments (0)

Two reviews of The Life of Words

It has been almost two years since I published The Life of Words: Etymology and Modern Poetry, and even longer since I stopped working on it. A couple of reviews have come out, one just the other day. They’re by Barry Wallenstein (in Choice) and Stephanie Burt (in Modern Philology). The latter is free to read without […]

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25.02.2022 – 09:34 | By D-AW | Posted in Criticism, Etymology, Language and Literature in Society, Poetry | Tagged , , , , | Comments (4)

Christmas Dinner

O, how I have complained over “DINNER” in the Oxford English Dictionary [see “Oxford English Dinner“]. The close of 2021 brought an early Christmas surprise: a new, fully revised entry. And it’s not just any revision, but one of those with an extended lexicological and sociohistorical note. The first main definition now says: 1. Originally: […]

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28.12.2021 – 13:39 | By D-AW | Posted in Language and Literature in Society, Lexicography, Uncategorized | Tagged , , | Comments (1)

Nae Mair for the Nonce?

Growlsome, guzzledom, panfrivolium – Oxford English Dictionary #OED doing away with “nonce-words” | Nae Mair for the Nonce? | The Life of Words

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11.12.2021 – 15:19 | By D-AW | Posted in Lexicography, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments (2)

OED “Transgender” Update Update

In my last post [“Why we need a Variorum OED: ‘Transgender’ ” 9/12/2020], I pointed to the OED entry for TRANSGENDER as it appeared in December 2020 as a good example of the need for a Variorum OED, which would label all elements (etymologies, definitions, quotations) with their individual revision histories. Well, in the last […]

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24.03.2021 – 10:44 | By D-AW | Posted in Digital Humanities, Language and Literature in Society, Lexicography | Tagged , , , , | Comments (15)

Why We Need a Variorum OED: “Transgender”

The need for a Variorum–i.e. a detailed revision history for every published element of the OED since 1884–is becoming even more acute.

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09.12.2020 – 15:04 | By D-AW | Posted in Digital Humanities, Language and Literature in Society, Lexicography | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments (2)