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 three months, OED.com has implemented a change in this direction in their entry presentation, which I’m sorry to say is a big fail:
OK, so the edition date has been updated from March 2003 (entry creation date) to March 2018 (latest full update), which is what I had surmised had occured in my previous post. That’s all good, but now we also have an even more recent update listed, the “latest version published online”, which is July 2020.
What is the difference between the edition date and the “latest version published online”, you ask? Does it mean definitions have been updated or more recent or older quotation evidence adduced? OED gives this boilerplate explanation in the Entry History link: Read More