Category Archives: Language and Literature in Society

Two Dictionary Book Reviews

Just out this month, reviews by me of two smart and interesting books about dictionaries: Craig Dworkin’s Dictionary Poetics: Toward a Radical Lexicography (review in Dictionaries) and Stephen Turton’s Before the Word Was Queer: Sexuality and the English Dictionary 1600-1930 (review in Review of English Studies). These two very different books are both about dictionaries […]

12.12.2024 – 09:39 | By D-AW | Posted in Language and Literature in Society, Lexicography, Poetry | Tagged , , , | Comments (0)

Ages of Word Types

Some years ago Marc Alexander published some fascinating treemaps based on the HTOED (see here: https://historicalthesaurus.arts.gla.ac.uk/treemaps/) showing how various conceptual domains grew and shrunk their vocabulary over time. Recently someone asked me what OED could tell us about the ages of some specific  trait words in English. The linked spreadsheet gives an answer to that, […]

13.07.2024 – 12:44 | By D-AW | Posted in Digital Humanities, Language and Literature in Society, Lexicography, Uncategorized | Comments (0)

The New-Look OED: The End of the Entry

The new-look OED Online tosses a lot that was great, and unique, and real, about OED, while offering little new of value.

30.07.2023 – 10:09 | By D-AW | Posted in Digital Humanities, Language and Literature in Society, Lexicography, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , | Comments (0)

Published: Women’s Words in the OED

Now published in Review of English Studies, 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 by quantitative […]

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

28.05.2023 – 08:48 | By D-AW | Posted in Digital Humanities, Language and Literature in Society, Lexicography | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments (7)

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 […]

05.11.2022 – 16:08 | By D-AW | Posted in Digital Humanities, Language and Literature in Society, Lexicography | 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 […]

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: […]

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

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 […]

24.03.2021 – 10:44 | By D-AW | Posted in Digital Humanities, Language and Literature in Society, Lexicography | Tagged , , , , | Comments (13)

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.

09.12.2020 – 15:04 | By D-AW | Posted in Digital Humanities, Language and Literature in Society, Lexicography | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments (0)