Tag Archives: digital humanities

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 […]

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 (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 […]

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 […]

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

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

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 […]

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.

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

Published: “Alien” vs. Editor: “World English” in the OED 1884-2020

This article discusses the changing ways in which the Oxford English Dictionary has recorded the vocabularies of ‘World English’ from the beginnings to the present day.

07.09.2020 – 09:31 | By D-AW | Posted in Digital Humanities, Etymology, Language and Literature in Society, Lexicography | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments (0)

A Variorum OED

The Oxford English Dictionary is a notoriously patchy text, having been written and re-written over a span of 130 years or so. In a recent post I put together a graphic representation of this, coloring bits from different editions, additional series and supplements. But even an up-to-date, revised entry in OED3 is a patchwork, combining […]

13.07.2020 – 13:46 | By D-AW | Posted in Digital Humanities, Lexicography | Tagged , , , , | Comments (4)

Fulsome Recovery

The 1989 Second Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary will tell you that you’re wrong if your think fulsome means the same as full. If you give a ‘fulsome answer’ to some question (as I’ve noticed many people do), it will tell you that your answer is ‘disgusting, repulsive, odious’, ‘Offensive to good taste’ and ‘gross […]

16.06.2020 – 14:15 | By D-AW | Posted in Digital Humanities, Etymology, Lexicography, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments (0)