This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 |
The source provided for the fact that the OED is the most comprehensive is the Oxford University Press - hardly an unbiased viewpoint. I've rewritten the first sentence to say that it is a comprehensive dictionary. Can someone provide an unbiased scholarly comparison of dictionaries? Longouyang ( talk) 17:07, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
The problem with calling the OED "a comprehensive dictionary" is that it is a bit like calling the Grand Canyon a large valley. It is the most comprehensive dictionary by far - I don't know of any that have more than 2 volumes. The OED 2nd edition is 20 volumes and the 3rd edition will be much bigger again. I think it is taken as self-evident so no one has ever "proved" it.
Molybdomancer ( talk) 14:17, 1 March 2008 (UTC)
An illustrative excerpt: "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 this revision pass at a letter other than A." —Preceding unsigned comment added by Colline ( talk • contribs) 20:49, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
The Dictionary.app program built into OS X 10.4 (along with the widget and the Cmd-Ctrl-D menu) contains the text of the New Oxford American Dictionary. You can set it to show US English pronunciations using IPA rather than the strange diacritical system. I have found it to be very accurate except for with any word containing the same vowel as 'fat'. For this vowel, which is æ in IPA, it uses ø, which is not even used in English. So the pronunciation for 'fat' is given as føt, which sounds more like someone with a thick accent trying to say 'foot'.
Does anyone know if there is a reason why this symbol is used? Is the IPA used in the print edition of either this or the normal OED? If so, can someone check which symbol is used there?
I should mention that the only word I have found whose pronunciation correctly uses æ is 'phat', interestingly enough.
Quote:
It is thus strange that some computer spell checkers treat an -ize ending to a word when spell checking for "British English" as an error! --Anonymous
Shouldn't that sentence be "The group analyzed labour statistics published by the organization" or am I missing something here? -- Silvestre Zabala 14:21, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Fowler's Modern English Usage says: <quote> -ize, -ise, in verbs. In the vast majority of the verbs that end in -ize or -ise and are pronounced 'iz', the ultimate source of the ending is the Greek 'izo', whether the particular verb was an actual Greek one or a Latin or French or English imitation, and whether such imitation was made by adding the termination to a Greek or other stem. Most English printers, taking their cue from Kent in 'King Lear', 'Thou whoreson zed! Thou unnecessary letter!', follow the French practice of changing -ize to ise. But the Oxford University Press, the Cambridge University Press, The Times, and American usage, in all of which -ize is the accepted form, carry authority enough to outweigh superior numbers. The OED's judgement may be quoted: 'In modern French the suffix has become -iser, alike in words from Greek, as 'baptiser', 'évangéliser', 'organiser', and those formed after them from Latin, as 'civiliser', 'cicatriser', 'humaniser'. Hence, some have used the spelling -ise in English, as in French, for all these words, and some prefer -ise in words formed in French or English from Latin elements, retaining -ize for those of Greek composition. But the suffix itself, whatever the element to which it is added, is in its origin the Greek -izein, Latin -izare; and, as the pronunciation is also with 'z', there is no reason why in English the special French spelling should be followed, in opposition to that which is at once etymological and phonetic. It must be noticed, however, that a small number of verbs, some of them in very frequent use, like 'advertise', 'devise', and 'surprise', do not get their -ise even remotely from the Greek -izo, and must be spelt with -s-. The difficulty of remembering which these -ise verbs are is in fact the only reason for making -ise universal, and the sacrifice of significance to ease does not seem justified. The more important of these exceptions are here given: advertise, advise, apprise, chastise, circumcise, comprise, compromise, demise, despise, devise, disfranchise, enfranchise, enterprise, excise, exercise, improvise, incise, premise, revise, supervise, surmise, surprise, televise. </unquote> Quod erat demonstrandum. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.131.215.35 ( talk • contribs) , at 14:43, 1 February 2006
The OED is the best dictionary in the world at the moment; I think it worth underlining that this is the case.
I have some sort of an Oxford Dictionary and I think it said on the removable cover (which I had to throw away because those are just annoying) that it had 300,000+ words while the Merrium-Webster only has 140,000+ words. I think that says that M-W is too conservative. I have to wonder because the unabridged version has just under 500,000; what gets left out and put into the unabridged dictionary? I'm almost done reading the one I got, so I know I can handle a few more entries.
- Adam H. June 19, 2006
I have two objections to the changes made to the Miscellanea section. First, why was Shakespeare removed as the most-quoted author, which is verified by the O.E.D. web site? Second, why was the most frequently quoted work changed from the Bible to Cursor Mundi? When I searched for Cursor Mundi, I only found 524 quotations in the New Edition and 16 in the Second Edition. But I might have been searching incorrectly—the source below found more than 12,000:
This seems to show that Cursor Mundi is the most-quoted Middle English work. Still, this doesn't compare with the estimate of 25,000 quotations as given on the O.E.D. web site [2], an estimate which includes the "various full and partial versions, and translations". -- Lesgles 17:52 3 Nov 2004 (UTC)
So is any of the OED out of copyright yet? If so it would be great for wiktionary. -- The bellman 11:55, 2005 Jan 26 (UTC)
The following are page scans from A New English Dictionary, volumes 2, 4, and 5--published in 1893, 1901, and 1919, respectively. If you check, you will note that Oxford University Press copied them straight into it's Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed. (1989).
I noticed that the definitions are copied almost word-for-word, as well, with the exception of new quotes and senses. This must be why Marion Sader and Amy Lewis in Encyclopedias, atlases & dictionaries (1995) p. 344, claim that certain parts of the OED2 are not accurate due to the outdated scholarship. One is given the impression that the OED was "expanded" to 20 volumes from the previous 12. However, those original volumes were huge. They each vary in size, but one of them was the largest book I've ever seen. They looked much larger than the present volumes. Further, as one can see from the page scans above, the columns are given much more spacing in the second edition, increasing the number of pages further.-- Ftym67 01:00, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
Note: Ftym67 ( talk · contribs) is almost certainly a sockpuppet of indefinitely blocked Primetime ( talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), aka Rickyboy ( talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) aka Richardr443 ( talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log). See here and here for the full and gory details. Note the continued rationalizations for plagiarism. -- Calton | Talk 13:45, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
The Wikipedia is very inconsistent in use of spellings. With some articles hopping back and forth between variant spellings of the same word. Has there ever been, or should there be, a push by Wikipedia to use only en-gb-oed for the English Wikipedia?
This question is dealt with thoroughly in Wikipedia:Manual of Style#National varieties of English — Caesura (t) 15:13, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
An editor here doubted that there's an one volume edition of the Oxford English dictionary. However, it exists. It was first published in 1948. I own a copy printed in 1981 which I was supposed to use in school and which I DID use in school and which I still own, and cherish, as of today. The current edition contains 1920 pages and is available on Amazon: http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0194316513/qid=1121898751/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl/202-0123068-2287067
Please check this information. ;) -- 85.74.131.62 22:44, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
Under 'Fascicles' the writer of this (most illuminating and informed) article says 'A second change in 1895 was the adoption of the title Oxford English Dictionary (OED) but only on the outer covers of the fascicles'. Can I ask what the evidence for this is - have you seen (or do you possess) copies of the original fascicles, with outer wrappers/covers intact, which have 'Oxford English Dictionary' on them from 1895 onwards but not before? C.T.Onions in 1928 ('Report on the Society's Dictionary', Transactions of the Philological Society (1925-30), 1-5) refers to the initial change from NED to OED (on covers only, not title page) but doesn't give a date. (I've partially quoted what he says in the glossary on my Examining OED site, at < http://oed.hertford.ox.ac.uk/main/content/view/73/183/>, under 'New English Dictionary). I'm planning to visit the OED archives and look at an original set of fascicles, but if anyone knows of a reliable authority (other than Onions) giving chapter and verse on the date at which the covers started saying 'New English Dictionary',I should be very grateful for the information. (Is there something on this tucked away somewhere in Caught in the Web of Words? Haven't been able to find it). Charlotte Brewer. Charlottebrewer 09:57, 17 August 2005 (UTC)
I can now answer this question, thanks to the OED archivist Beverley Hunt at Oxford University Press, who tells me that the first fascicle cover to bear the title 'Oxford English Dictionary' alongside that of 'New English Dictionary' was Part 8, Section 2: D-Depravation, published 1895. Every fascicle published subsequent to that date included both titles - though fascicles were not necessarily published in alphabetical order.Charlotte Brewer Charlottebrewer 12:25, 22 August 2005 (UTC)
printed on the outer cover -- not on the inside title page, but only on the slip cover -- were, for the first time, the words Oxford English Dictionary.
Incidentally, while confirming that Deceit–Deject was 64 pages, I was interested to see that the preceding section, D–Deceit, had the unusual length of 88 pages. Perhaps when they started with the smaller fascicles they wanted to publish everything they had ready at that point. Deject–Depravation is 64 pages again, making 216 for the combined fascicle mentioned above. 66.96.28.244 10:56, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
I'm not sure this is relevant? -- R4p70r 07:46, 22 August 2005 (UTC)
Are there any known fake / phony / fictitious / easter egg words in the OED? I mean words which never occurred before and were entirely invented by the editors either as a joke or as an attempt to trace who copies the OED corpus. See [4] for a similar story in another Oxford dictionary (the New Oxford American Dictionary, which includes the fake word "esquivalience": I wonder whether it will now appear in future editions of the OED as "rare^0" like "palumbine"). It would be interesting to automate comparing the OED corpus with those of other huge dictionaries and Google/DNS requests to see whether that reveals a few culprits. -- Gro-Tsen 21:50, 2 September 2005 (UTC)
The OED is imensely useful, but how can I access the OED online? Does anyone have a username and a password? -- Tavilis 16:05, 11 October 2005 (UTC)
Many universities and libraries have online access to the OED, so if you want to access the OED online, try a university library with public computing facilities. But of course, if you're at a university library, you can access the print edition of the OED anyway. — Caesura (t) 15:22, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
Many UK Public Libraries give their members access to Oxford OED online Vernon White 16:51, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
FLASH--THIS JUST IN--"Wiki Now an English Word"--Reuters 25 minutes ago:
If you think “wiki” doesn’t sound like English, you are right. But it’s English now. This word, born on the Pacific Island of Hawaii, finally got an entry into the online Oxford English Dictionary along with 287 other words. It has earned it.
Words are included in the dictionary on the basis of the documentary evidence that we have collected about them. A while ago this evidenced suggested that wiki was starting to make a name for itself, “OED Chief Editor John Simpson said in a statement. “We tracked it for several years, researched its origins and finally decided it was time to include it in the dictionary.”
But “wiki wiki”, meaning “quick” in Hawaiian, has a very different meaning in its new host language: a type of web page designed so that its contents can be edited by anyone who accesses it. That the word acquired a new meaning is attributed to the fact that commenting and editing on Internet Web sites became faster, the OED’s principle editor of new words, Graeme Diamond said. “There was no delay in submitting a comment,” Diamond said. The most famous example is the popular Internet encyclopædia wikipedia. Diamond said new Internet-age concept of “wiki” fits well with the 120-year-old dictionary’s own methods.
User:W8IMP 17:10, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
My last entry should have included the following:
Copyright© 2007 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters shall not be liable for any errors or delays in the content, or for any actions taken in reliance thereon.
Since it is copywrited, does this mean I should not have included it?
-- W8IMP 19:59, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
Generally regarded as the definitive dictionary of the English language...
Whether we say "generally" or (as before this edit) "often", just what does this statement actually mean? Unless it can be shown to have some real meaning and rephrased to make sense it should be deleted. We should be careful to avoid any implication that OED is the official arbiter of what counts as a "real word", or what's "correct English" or any such nonsense -- something OED does not claim to do and which no informed person would expect it to do. Flapdragon 02:07, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
On July 5, 2004, User:Quadell changed the earlier statement that the Bible was the most-quoted work to say that it was Cursor Mundi, without citing a source for this. Yet the askoxford.com page of statistics cited in the article says "Most-quoted work: the Bible", and the oed.com page of statistics is more specific:
I have seen the same statement in another source too, but I can't remember where. In any case, this seems like sufficient reason to restore this item; I've adjustd the wording to refer to the multiple forms of the Bible. Perhaps someone with OED Online access can determine how many quotations from Cursor Mundi there are?
66.96.28.244 10:24, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
This page badly overuses wikilinks. According to MOS: Wikilinks, it's best not to link terms that are of little importance or commonly understood. Accordingly, I'm going to be brutal in de-linking. If you read through afterwords and think that the link to decimalisation, for instance, needs to be there, by all means put it back in. I just want to clear everything out so we can see what's valuable. Zabieru 01:49, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
it seems somehow odd to read, in a reference work (such as wikipedia):
"the oxford english dictionary... is a dictionary yada yada"
yet that is just how this article begins
(the loch ness monster is a monster yada yada yada...)
would it not be more academic to change that to:
"the oxford english (oed) is a dictionary yada yada"
?
or perhaps "the oxford english dictionary (oed)
is [what it is, without including "dictionary"]
can someone take care of this redundance, please?
(i tried but it was edited out!)
I realise that this article is about the "full" OED, but I'm trying to find information about all the various Oxford english dictionaries (note lower case), and I don't know where to look. Specifically I want to know how "Concise", "Compact", "Pocket", etc., relate to each other. It seems like this article, or at least its "See Also" list, should help, but doesn't.
For example, this article says that "the full content of the 13-volume OED1 from 1933 was reprinted as a Compact Edition of just two volumes.". But Ask Oxford.com says "The Compact Oxford English Dictionary of Current English contains 145,000 words, phrases, and definitions." So I guess the "OED Compact Edition" is different from the "Compact OED". Basically, I think this article should eather contain or link to a list and comparison (basic, like number of definitions) of Oxford dictionaries, like this one. — Johan the Ghost seance 10:35, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
I am developing an article called Nesh. I wonder if any editor has access to either the full or shorter version and can post here, please, the entry for nesh so I can include it in the article? TerriersFan 10:38, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
I removed this statement from the introduction: "It is also known as the de facto regulator of the English language." I also removed the word accurate from the second sentence in the intro. For one thing, the OED was compiled by volunteers. Many of these people were amateurs who selected poor quotations that didn't convey a word's meaning very well. Another problem is the fact that older parts of the dictionary just haven't been updated. Older senses of words read almost exactly as they did in the first edition and even in the NED. Etymologies, although very detailed, have to be double-checked. As an historical dictionary, the OED is peerless. It provides a very good record of words and senses no longer commonly used in English. But, editors do not rely on it as much as other dictionaries. There are many other large dictionaries that provide the same depth of coverage for words currently in use. Examples include Merriam-Webster's Third New International Dictionary and the Random House Unabridged Dictionary. Keep in mind that, although the OED is very large, it still lacks many modern slang, regional, and technical terms. It is baffling to me that OUP hasn't integrated terms found in its specialized dictionaries (e.g., The Oxford Dictionary of Computing) into the OED.-- Words32 07:21, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
What's the point of all these "see also" links? What exactly is the relevance of the Century Dictionary, Fowler's Modern English Usage etc? Even the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary, which is just an unconnected work from the same publishing house? Flapdragon 03:32, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
I agree. Removed the irrelevant ones. Flapdragon 14:50, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
The Wikipedia page for the above redirects to the Oxford English Dictionary page. They're completely different books - The Compact OED of Current English is just over 1200 pages long, a little squirt compared to the full OED. And it's based on the Concise Oxford English Dictionary, not the Oxford English Dictionary. I'm not wikipedia-literate enough to break this redirect. Could someone else do this? It's really misleading! Accaber 13:09, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
These OUP titles are so misleading. As if there wasn't enough confusion with Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford Dictionary of English, Compact Oxford English Dictionary or is it Compact edition of OED, can you believe they call this one Compact Oxford English Dictionary of Current English and then refer to it as the Compact Oxford English Dictionary which is alsi what's on the cover? And what kind of title is Compact Oxford English Dictionary of Current English anyway? You'd almost believe they wanted to foster the misapprehension so many people have that they own "The Oxford English Dictionary". Flapdragon 14:38, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
For a friend, I read this OED article today for the first time, and summarised as follows.
Searching the article afterwards for the word "library", I see the info of my second paragraph actually already is in the article. But that info - personally most significant to me and I guess to almost any reader - was skillfully buried in a way that led me to miss it. Maybe we should fix that.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxford_English_Dictionary tells me the electronic alternatives for purchase at home aren't real yet. OED have lost time playing with copy-protection and proprietary data formats. Also OED have let really committed people fetch entries across the Internet for ~US$300/yr.
http://www.oed.com/services/public-libs.html says that most people living in Ireland and the UK now can get "remote access" thru their local library, which means "you can access the whole of OED online at home, free, using your library's subscription.". They also say "of course, many libraries elsewhere in the world subscribe, and should offer remote access. Ask your librarian whether your library subscribes".
67.188.135.108 13:58, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
Several English dictionaries have "Oxford" in their title. This seems to be causing a significant amount of confusion. Many people who think they've used the Oxford English Dictionary actually haven't. Doesn't this warrant mentioning in the article? I would like to see a section about this issue, perhaps with a list of dictionaries that have "Oxford" in their title and a short description of how each is related to the OED. Herorev 07:11, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
lklk —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.192.213.112 ( talk) 04:22, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
currently logged in. Eding this way will —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.192.213.112 ( talk) 04:23, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
7 April 2008: I fixed several grammatical and punctuation errors and made some sentences more clear. I also pointed to the need for sourcing and citations, though I don't think this article is inaccurate.
I added a "criticisms" section to offer another perspective on the dictionary. My main source was Roy Harris' TLS review from 1982. I know there are several other critical pieces and books on the OED; if anyone has read them, could you add that information to the article?
Also, could someone with expert knowledge untangle the following sentence and make it more clear? I have no idea what it is trying to say.
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."
[This is from the "First Editors" section.]
Comrade pat ( talk) 23:17, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
I am not sure the OED is the second largest dictionary in print.
The "Grande Dizionario Della Lingua Italiana Battaglia", is published in 21 volumes, (29,5 x 22,5 cm), 22504 pages, is printed really tight on 3 columns, with not even one graphic. Just the main entries are 183594, but with secondary ones it comes close to half a million.
Reference: http://www.lamescolanza.com/temp/grande_dizionario.htm —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.222.49.195 ( talk) 12:58, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
Noting this revert, what can we add to the article to illustrate that a Compact edition is practically unreadable and a recent one-volume Compact completely and unusably unreadable, hence the continuing sale of the older two-volume? All without falling foul of WP:NOR, of course. The two-volume is, AFAIK, the only book I can think of that's sold with a bundled magnifying glass. Even that's barely enough. Whilst I think this revert was in the best of faith and compliance with scripture, the point that was previously made is worth making. Andy Dingley ( talk) 10:58, 7 September 2008 (UTC) (all 13 volumes and no space to put them)
I don't think the OED2 compact version is printed significantly smaller than the two-volume OED1 version -- it's printed nine-up by making the pages bigger. The dimensions of the OED2 version according to Amazon are 44.4 x 28.4 cm, whereas my compact OED1 (BCA edition, but I assume it's the same size as the Oxford edition) measures 31.0 x 23.5 cm. Incidentally, other books have been sold bundled with a magnifying glass, e.g. the Compact Edition of the Dictionary of National Biography (UK). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.113.91.48 ( talk) 12:05, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
This table could be clearer with some column headings. Although the info is mostly explained in the text to the left, it would help if the table were easy understandable on its own -- e.g., why we see A, C, D, F, etc., and not A-B, C, D-E, F. AaRH ( talk) 23:52, 13 September 2008 (UTC)
Article says: "More recently, John Willinsky has criticized the OED in his Empire of Words: The Reign of the Oxford English Dictionary."
Ok, so what? Care to elaborate? I'm sure there are many other people that have critisized the OED but they haven't been mentioned. So why are we mentioning this specific guy? What is his problem with the OED specifically? A word? The font that is used? This section needs to be re-written to include some detail. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.210.64.214 ( talk) 08:37, 2 November 2008 (UTC)
Most of this article also appears verbatim at [ [6]]. Which was the original? Ineuw ( talk) 16:59, 10 November 2008 (UTC)
i want the exact no. of original english words in very first oxford dictionary.pls tell me. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.95.23.59 ( talk) 04:58, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
There was a discussion up the page about copyright issues, but what I'd like to know specifically is if there are any on-line versions of out-of-copyright versions of the Oxford English Dictionary. - KappaD ( talk) 09:22, 16 July 2009 (UTC)
Two fully-bound print editions of the OED have been published under its current name, in 1928 and 1989
Am I missing something? It wasn't published under its current name in 1928, it wasn't the OED till much later. Flapdragon ( talk) 22:03, 30 August 2009 (UTC)
a way of saying something has gone wrong. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.25.57.217 ( talk) 00:54, 18 January 2010 (UTC)
Note 18 is a dead link. —Preceding
unsigned comment added by
84.202.139.147 (
talk)
11:32, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
new screenshot added of cd v4.0 win7 added -- Umar1996 ( talk) 12:59, 17 October 2010 (UTC)
This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 |
The source provided for the fact that the OED is the most comprehensive is the Oxford University Press - hardly an unbiased viewpoint. I've rewritten the first sentence to say that it is a comprehensive dictionary. Can someone provide an unbiased scholarly comparison of dictionaries? Longouyang ( talk) 17:07, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
The problem with calling the OED "a comprehensive dictionary" is that it is a bit like calling the Grand Canyon a large valley. It is the most comprehensive dictionary by far - I don't know of any that have more than 2 volumes. The OED 2nd edition is 20 volumes and the 3rd edition will be much bigger again. I think it is taken as self-evident so no one has ever "proved" it.
Molybdomancer ( talk) 14:17, 1 March 2008 (UTC)
An illustrative excerpt: "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 this revision pass at a letter other than A." —Preceding unsigned comment added by Colline ( talk • contribs) 20:49, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
The Dictionary.app program built into OS X 10.4 (along with the widget and the Cmd-Ctrl-D menu) contains the text of the New Oxford American Dictionary. You can set it to show US English pronunciations using IPA rather than the strange diacritical system. I have found it to be very accurate except for with any word containing the same vowel as 'fat'. For this vowel, which is æ in IPA, it uses ø, which is not even used in English. So the pronunciation for 'fat' is given as føt, which sounds more like someone with a thick accent trying to say 'foot'.
Does anyone know if there is a reason why this symbol is used? Is the IPA used in the print edition of either this or the normal OED? If so, can someone check which symbol is used there?
I should mention that the only word I have found whose pronunciation correctly uses æ is 'phat', interestingly enough.
Quote:
It is thus strange that some computer spell checkers treat an -ize ending to a word when spell checking for "British English" as an error! --Anonymous
Shouldn't that sentence be "The group analyzed labour statistics published by the organization" or am I missing something here? -- Silvestre Zabala 14:21, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Fowler's Modern English Usage says: <quote> -ize, -ise, in verbs. In the vast majority of the verbs that end in -ize or -ise and are pronounced 'iz', the ultimate source of the ending is the Greek 'izo', whether the particular verb was an actual Greek one or a Latin or French or English imitation, and whether such imitation was made by adding the termination to a Greek or other stem. Most English printers, taking their cue from Kent in 'King Lear', 'Thou whoreson zed! Thou unnecessary letter!', follow the French practice of changing -ize to ise. But the Oxford University Press, the Cambridge University Press, The Times, and American usage, in all of which -ize is the accepted form, carry authority enough to outweigh superior numbers. The OED's judgement may be quoted: 'In modern French the suffix has become -iser, alike in words from Greek, as 'baptiser', 'évangéliser', 'organiser', and those formed after them from Latin, as 'civiliser', 'cicatriser', 'humaniser'. Hence, some have used the spelling -ise in English, as in French, for all these words, and some prefer -ise in words formed in French or English from Latin elements, retaining -ize for those of Greek composition. But the suffix itself, whatever the element to which it is added, is in its origin the Greek -izein, Latin -izare; and, as the pronunciation is also with 'z', there is no reason why in English the special French spelling should be followed, in opposition to that which is at once etymological and phonetic. It must be noticed, however, that a small number of verbs, some of them in very frequent use, like 'advertise', 'devise', and 'surprise', do not get their -ise even remotely from the Greek -izo, and must be spelt with -s-. The difficulty of remembering which these -ise verbs are is in fact the only reason for making -ise universal, and the sacrifice of significance to ease does not seem justified. The more important of these exceptions are here given: advertise, advise, apprise, chastise, circumcise, comprise, compromise, demise, despise, devise, disfranchise, enfranchise, enterprise, excise, exercise, improvise, incise, premise, revise, supervise, surmise, surprise, televise. </unquote> Quod erat demonstrandum. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.131.215.35 ( talk • contribs) , at 14:43, 1 February 2006
The OED is the best dictionary in the world at the moment; I think it worth underlining that this is the case.
I have some sort of an Oxford Dictionary and I think it said on the removable cover (which I had to throw away because those are just annoying) that it had 300,000+ words while the Merrium-Webster only has 140,000+ words. I think that says that M-W is too conservative. I have to wonder because the unabridged version has just under 500,000; what gets left out and put into the unabridged dictionary? I'm almost done reading the one I got, so I know I can handle a few more entries.
- Adam H. June 19, 2006
I have two objections to the changes made to the Miscellanea section. First, why was Shakespeare removed as the most-quoted author, which is verified by the O.E.D. web site? Second, why was the most frequently quoted work changed from the Bible to Cursor Mundi? When I searched for Cursor Mundi, I only found 524 quotations in the New Edition and 16 in the Second Edition. But I might have been searching incorrectly—the source below found more than 12,000:
This seems to show that Cursor Mundi is the most-quoted Middle English work. Still, this doesn't compare with the estimate of 25,000 quotations as given on the O.E.D. web site [2], an estimate which includes the "various full and partial versions, and translations". -- Lesgles 17:52 3 Nov 2004 (UTC)
So is any of the OED out of copyright yet? If so it would be great for wiktionary. -- The bellman 11:55, 2005 Jan 26 (UTC)
The following are page scans from A New English Dictionary, volumes 2, 4, and 5--published in 1893, 1901, and 1919, respectively. If you check, you will note that Oxford University Press copied them straight into it's Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed. (1989).
I noticed that the definitions are copied almost word-for-word, as well, with the exception of new quotes and senses. This must be why Marion Sader and Amy Lewis in Encyclopedias, atlases & dictionaries (1995) p. 344, claim that certain parts of the OED2 are not accurate due to the outdated scholarship. One is given the impression that the OED was "expanded" to 20 volumes from the previous 12. However, those original volumes were huge. They each vary in size, but one of them was the largest book I've ever seen. They looked much larger than the present volumes. Further, as one can see from the page scans above, the columns are given much more spacing in the second edition, increasing the number of pages further.-- Ftym67 01:00, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
Note: Ftym67 ( talk · contribs) is almost certainly a sockpuppet of indefinitely blocked Primetime ( talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), aka Rickyboy ( talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) aka Richardr443 ( talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log). See here and here for the full and gory details. Note the continued rationalizations for plagiarism. -- Calton | Talk 13:45, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
The Wikipedia is very inconsistent in use of spellings. With some articles hopping back and forth between variant spellings of the same word. Has there ever been, or should there be, a push by Wikipedia to use only en-gb-oed for the English Wikipedia?
This question is dealt with thoroughly in Wikipedia:Manual of Style#National varieties of English — Caesura (t) 15:13, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
An editor here doubted that there's an one volume edition of the Oxford English dictionary. However, it exists. It was first published in 1948. I own a copy printed in 1981 which I was supposed to use in school and which I DID use in school and which I still own, and cherish, as of today. The current edition contains 1920 pages and is available on Amazon: http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0194316513/qid=1121898751/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl/202-0123068-2287067
Please check this information. ;) -- 85.74.131.62 22:44, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
Under 'Fascicles' the writer of this (most illuminating and informed) article says 'A second change in 1895 was the adoption of the title Oxford English Dictionary (OED) but only on the outer covers of the fascicles'. Can I ask what the evidence for this is - have you seen (or do you possess) copies of the original fascicles, with outer wrappers/covers intact, which have 'Oxford English Dictionary' on them from 1895 onwards but not before? C.T.Onions in 1928 ('Report on the Society's Dictionary', Transactions of the Philological Society (1925-30), 1-5) refers to the initial change from NED to OED (on covers only, not title page) but doesn't give a date. (I've partially quoted what he says in the glossary on my Examining OED site, at < http://oed.hertford.ox.ac.uk/main/content/view/73/183/>, under 'New English Dictionary). I'm planning to visit the OED archives and look at an original set of fascicles, but if anyone knows of a reliable authority (other than Onions) giving chapter and verse on the date at which the covers started saying 'New English Dictionary',I should be very grateful for the information. (Is there something on this tucked away somewhere in Caught in the Web of Words? Haven't been able to find it). Charlotte Brewer. Charlottebrewer 09:57, 17 August 2005 (UTC)
I can now answer this question, thanks to the OED archivist Beverley Hunt at Oxford University Press, who tells me that the first fascicle cover to bear the title 'Oxford English Dictionary' alongside that of 'New English Dictionary' was Part 8, Section 2: D-Depravation, published 1895. Every fascicle published subsequent to that date included both titles - though fascicles were not necessarily published in alphabetical order.Charlotte Brewer Charlottebrewer 12:25, 22 August 2005 (UTC)
printed on the outer cover -- not on the inside title page, but only on the slip cover -- were, for the first time, the words Oxford English Dictionary.
Incidentally, while confirming that Deceit–Deject was 64 pages, I was interested to see that the preceding section, D–Deceit, had the unusual length of 88 pages. Perhaps when they started with the smaller fascicles they wanted to publish everything they had ready at that point. Deject–Depravation is 64 pages again, making 216 for the combined fascicle mentioned above. 66.96.28.244 10:56, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
I'm not sure this is relevant? -- R4p70r 07:46, 22 August 2005 (UTC)
Are there any known fake / phony / fictitious / easter egg words in the OED? I mean words which never occurred before and were entirely invented by the editors either as a joke or as an attempt to trace who copies the OED corpus. See [4] for a similar story in another Oxford dictionary (the New Oxford American Dictionary, which includes the fake word "esquivalience": I wonder whether it will now appear in future editions of the OED as "rare^0" like "palumbine"). It would be interesting to automate comparing the OED corpus with those of other huge dictionaries and Google/DNS requests to see whether that reveals a few culprits. -- Gro-Tsen 21:50, 2 September 2005 (UTC)
The OED is imensely useful, but how can I access the OED online? Does anyone have a username and a password? -- Tavilis 16:05, 11 October 2005 (UTC)
Many universities and libraries have online access to the OED, so if you want to access the OED online, try a university library with public computing facilities. But of course, if you're at a university library, you can access the print edition of the OED anyway. — Caesura (t) 15:22, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
Many UK Public Libraries give their members access to Oxford OED online Vernon White 16:51, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
FLASH--THIS JUST IN--"Wiki Now an English Word"--Reuters 25 minutes ago:
If you think “wiki” doesn’t sound like English, you are right. But it’s English now. This word, born on the Pacific Island of Hawaii, finally got an entry into the online Oxford English Dictionary along with 287 other words. It has earned it.
Words are included in the dictionary on the basis of the documentary evidence that we have collected about them. A while ago this evidenced suggested that wiki was starting to make a name for itself, “OED Chief Editor John Simpson said in a statement. “We tracked it for several years, researched its origins and finally decided it was time to include it in the dictionary.”
But “wiki wiki”, meaning “quick” in Hawaiian, has a very different meaning in its new host language: a type of web page designed so that its contents can be edited by anyone who accesses it. That the word acquired a new meaning is attributed to the fact that commenting and editing on Internet Web sites became faster, the OED’s principle editor of new words, Graeme Diamond said. “There was no delay in submitting a comment,” Diamond said. The most famous example is the popular Internet encyclopædia wikipedia. Diamond said new Internet-age concept of “wiki” fits well with the 120-year-old dictionary’s own methods.
User:W8IMP 17:10, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
My last entry should have included the following:
Copyright© 2007 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters shall not be liable for any errors or delays in the content, or for any actions taken in reliance thereon.
Since it is copywrited, does this mean I should not have included it?
-- W8IMP 19:59, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
Generally regarded as the definitive dictionary of the English language...
Whether we say "generally" or (as before this edit) "often", just what does this statement actually mean? Unless it can be shown to have some real meaning and rephrased to make sense it should be deleted. We should be careful to avoid any implication that OED is the official arbiter of what counts as a "real word", or what's "correct English" or any such nonsense -- something OED does not claim to do and which no informed person would expect it to do. Flapdragon 02:07, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
On July 5, 2004, User:Quadell changed the earlier statement that the Bible was the most-quoted work to say that it was Cursor Mundi, without citing a source for this. Yet the askoxford.com page of statistics cited in the article says "Most-quoted work: the Bible", and the oed.com page of statistics is more specific:
I have seen the same statement in another source too, but I can't remember where. In any case, this seems like sufficient reason to restore this item; I've adjustd the wording to refer to the multiple forms of the Bible. Perhaps someone with OED Online access can determine how many quotations from Cursor Mundi there are?
66.96.28.244 10:24, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
This page badly overuses wikilinks. According to MOS: Wikilinks, it's best not to link terms that are of little importance or commonly understood. Accordingly, I'm going to be brutal in de-linking. If you read through afterwords and think that the link to decimalisation, for instance, needs to be there, by all means put it back in. I just want to clear everything out so we can see what's valuable. Zabieru 01:49, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
it seems somehow odd to read, in a reference work (such as wikipedia):
"the oxford english dictionary... is a dictionary yada yada"
yet that is just how this article begins
(the loch ness monster is a monster yada yada yada...)
would it not be more academic to change that to:
"the oxford english (oed) is a dictionary yada yada"
?
or perhaps "the oxford english dictionary (oed)
is [what it is, without including "dictionary"]
can someone take care of this redundance, please?
(i tried but it was edited out!)
I realise that this article is about the "full" OED, but I'm trying to find information about all the various Oxford english dictionaries (note lower case), and I don't know where to look. Specifically I want to know how "Concise", "Compact", "Pocket", etc., relate to each other. It seems like this article, or at least its "See Also" list, should help, but doesn't.
For example, this article says that "the full content of the 13-volume OED1 from 1933 was reprinted as a Compact Edition of just two volumes.". But Ask Oxford.com says "The Compact Oxford English Dictionary of Current English contains 145,000 words, phrases, and definitions." So I guess the "OED Compact Edition" is different from the "Compact OED". Basically, I think this article should eather contain or link to a list and comparison (basic, like number of definitions) of Oxford dictionaries, like this one. — Johan the Ghost seance 10:35, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
I am developing an article called Nesh. I wonder if any editor has access to either the full or shorter version and can post here, please, the entry for nesh so I can include it in the article? TerriersFan 10:38, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
I removed this statement from the introduction: "It is also known as the de facto regulator of the English language." I also removed the word accurate from the second sentence in the intro. For one thing, the OED was compiled by volunteers. Many of these people were amateurs who selected poor quotations that didn't convey a word's meaning very well. Another problem is the fact that older parts of the dictionary just haven't been updated. Older senses of words read almost exactly as they did in the first edition and even in the NED. Etymologies, although very detailed, have to be double-checked. As an historical dictionary, the OED is peerless. It provides a very good record of words and senses no longer commonly used in English. But, editors do not rely on it as much as other dictionaries. There are many other large dictionaries that provide the same depth of coverage for words currently in use. Examples include Merriam-Webster's Third New International Dictionary and the Random House Unabridged Dictionary. Keep in mind that, although the OED is very large, it still lacks many modern slang, regional, and technical terms. It is baffling to me that OUP hasn't integrated terms found in its specialized dictionaries (e.g., The Oxford Dictionary of Computing) into the OED.-- Words32 07:21, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
What's the point of all these "see also" links? What exactly is the relevance of the Century Dictionary, Fowler's Modern English Usage etc? Even the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary, which is just an unconnected work from the same publishing house? Flapdragon 03:32, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
I agree. Removed the irrelevant ones. Flapdragon 14:50, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
The Wikipedia page for the above redirects to the Oxford English Dictionary page. They're completely different books - The Compact OED of Current English is just over 1200 pages long, a little squirt compared to the full OED. And it's based on the Concise Oxford English Dictionary, not the Oxford English Dictionary. I'm not wikipedia-literate enough to break this redirect. Could someone else do this? It's really misleading! Accaber 13:09, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
These OUP titles are so misleading. As if there wasn't enough confusion with Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford Dictionary of English, Compact Oxford English Dictionary or is it Compact edition of OED, can you believe they call this one Compact Oxford English Dictionary of Current English and then refer to it as the Compact Oxford English Dictionary which is alsi what's on the cover? And what kind of title is Compact Oxford English Dictionary of Current English anyway? You'd almost believe they wanted to foster the misapprehension so many people have that they own "The Oxford English Dictionary". Flapdragon 14:38, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
For a friend, I read this OED article today for the first time, and summarised as follows.
Searching the article afterwards for the word "library", I see the info of my second paragraph actually already is in the article. But that info - personally most significant to me and I guess to almost any reader - was skillfully buried in a way that led me to miss it. Maybe we should fix that.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxford_English_Dictionary tells me the electronic alternatives for purchase at home aren't real yet. OED have lost time playing with copy-protection and proprietary data formats. Also OED have let really committed people fetch entries across the Internet for ~US$300/yr.
http://www.oed.com/services/public-libs.html says that most people living in Ireland and the UK now can get "remote access" thru their local library, which means "you can access the whole of OED online at home, free, using your library's subscription.". They also say "of course, many libraries elsewhere in the world subscribe, and should offer remote access. Ask your librarian whether your library subscribes".
67.188.135.108 13:58, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
Several English dictionaries have "Oxford" in their title. This seems to be causing a significant amount of confusion. Many people who think they've used the Oxford English Dictionary actually haven't. Doesn't this warrant mentioning in the article? I would like to see a section about this issue, perhaps with a list of dictionaries that have "Oxford" in their title and a short description of how each is related to the OED. Herorev 07:11, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
lklk —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.192.213.112 ( talk) 04:22, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
currently logged in. Eding this way will —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.192.213.112 ( talk) 04:23, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
7 April 2008: I fixed several grammatical and punctuation errors and made some sentences more clear. I also pointed to the need for sourcing and citations, though I don't think this article is inaccurate.
I added a "criticisms" section to offer another perspective on the dictionary. My main source was Roy Harris' TLS review from 1982. I know there are several other critical pieces and books on the OED; if anyone has read them, could you add that information to the article?
Also, could someone with expert knowledge untangle the following sentence and make it more clear? I have no idea what it is trying to say.
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."
[This is from the "First Editors" section.]
Comrade pat ( talk) 23:17, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
I am not sure the OED is the second largest dictionary in print.
The "Grande Dizionario Della Lingua Italiana Battaglia", is published in 21 volumes, (29,5 x 22,5 cm), 22504 pages, is printed really tight on 3 columns, with not even one graphic. Just the main entries are 183594, but with secondary ones it comes close to half a million.
Reference: http://www.lamescolanza.com/temp/grande_dizionario.htm —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.222.49.195 ( talk) 12:58, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
Noting this revert, what can we add to the article to illustrate that a Compact edition is practically unreadable and a recent one-volume Compact completely and unusably unreadable, hence the continuing sale of the older two-volume? All without falling foul of WP:NOR, of course. The two-volume is, AFAIK, the only book I can think of that's sold with a bundled magnifying glass. Even that's barely enough. Whilst I think this revert was in the best of faith and compliance with scripture, the point that was previously made is worth making. Andy Dingley ( talk) 10:58, 7 September 2008 (UTC) (all 13 volumes and no space to put them)
I don't think the OED2 compact version is printed significantly smaller than the two-volume OED1 version -- it's printed nine-up by making the pages bigger. The dimensions of the OED2 version according to Amazon are 44.4 x 28.4 cm, whereas my compact OED1 (BCA edition, but I assume it's the same size as the Oxford edition) measures 31.0 x 23.5 cm. Incidentally, other books have been sold bundled with a magnifying glass, e.g. the Compact Edition of the Dictionary of National Biography (UK). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.113.91.48 ( talk) 12:05, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
This table could be clearer with some column headings. Although the info is mostly explained in the text to the left, it would help if the table were easy understandable on its own -- e.g., why we see A, C, D, F, etc., and not A-B, C, D-E, F. AaRH ( talk) 23:52, 13 September 2008 (UTC)
Article says: "More recently, John Willinsky has criticized the OED in his Empire of Words: The Reign of the Oxford English Dictionary."
Ok, so what? Care to elaborate? I'm sure there are many other people that have critisized the OED but they haven't been mentioned. So why are we mentioning this specific guy? What is his problem with the OED specifically? A word? The font that is used? This section needs to be re-written to include some detail. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.210.64.214 ( talk) 08:37, 2 November 2008 (UTC)
Most of this article also appears verbatim at [ [6]]. Which was the original? Ineuw ( talk) 16:59, 10 November 2008 (UTC)
i want the exact no. of original english words in very first oxford dictionary.pls tell me. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.95.23.59 ( talk) 04:58, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
There was a discussion up the page about copyright issues, but what I'd like to know specifically is if there are any on-line versions of out-of-copyright versions of the Oxford English Dictionary. - KappaD ( talk) 09:22, 16 July 2009 (UTC)
Two fully-bound print editions of the OED have been published under its current name, in 1928 and 1989
Am I missing something? It wasn't published under its current name in 1928, it wasn't the OED till much later. Flapdragon ( talk) 22:03, 30 August 2009 (UTC)
a way of saying something has gone wrong. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.25.57.217 ( talk) 00:54, 18 January 2010 (UTC)
Note 18 is a dead link. —Preceding
unsigned comment added by
84.202.139.147 (
talk)
11:32, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
new screenshot added of cd v4.0 win7 added -- Umar1996 ( talk) 12:59, 17 October 2010 (UTC)