Oxford English Dictionary Exploration Name: ____________________________

History of the English Language, fall 2004

Due Thurs., Sept. 9

The Oxford English Dictionary, affectionately known as the OED, is an incomparable reference tool, and the purpose of this assignment is to introduce you to it. The OED was the first historical dictionary of any language, and this is especially impressive because English has the largest vocabulary of any language. The whole Second Edition became available online in March 2000, not only making it more easily accessible but also enabling new kinds of searches that put its wealth of information to further use. In addition, the online version has also begun to include new material on various words that will become incorporated into the Third Edition, scheduled for completion in 2010. You’ll be using the OED for several different assignments later in this course.

To access the text of the OED online, you must use a computer that is logged on to the Web through a Hope account. Go to the Van Wylen Library page, click on “Research Options,” then click on “Online Reference Sources,” then on “Oxford English Dictionary (OED Online)” and follow the instructions on the OED site. Or you can use this link. A printed copy of the Second Edition is available in Van Wylen Library on a high shelf behind the reference desk in twenty volumes plus supplements. It’s worth looking at just to see the size of the thing.

I also recommend taking the tour available on the web site. And if you’re interested in a career as a lexicographer, see “Lex in the City: reflections on a year in the North American Editorial Unit” (both parts) from the March 2003 issue of OED News.

A. These questions draw on the section called “About the OED,” accessible by clicking on the OED logo in the upper left corner of the “Welcome to OED Online” page, or by going directly to http://dictionary.oed.com/. Questions 1-5 are from the subsection called “History of the Dictionary,” questions 6-11 from “Dictionary Facts,” and questions 12-14 from “Contributing to the OED.”

1. What was the OED first called?

2. When was the first edition completed? 3. When was the Second Edition published?

4. How much profit has Oxford University Press made by publishing the OED?

5. What will make the Third Edition a more thorough revision than the Second Edition?

6. About how many people contributed to the first edition as readers?

7. How many authors are represented in quotations in the first edition?

8. Which word has the longest entry in the Second Edition? Why?

9. What is the largest number given for how many words are defined and/or illustrated in the Second Edition?

10. What is the most frequently quoted work in the Second Edition?

11. Who is the most frequently quoted author in the Second Edition?

12. Who is invited to contribute new material for the next edition?

13. Are they interested in records of spoken English?

14. How would one submit a new word?

B. Questions 15 through 18 ask you to look at the “Guide to OED entries” (from the main page of the OED online, go to “OED Online Help” and look under “Understanding the OED”).

15. For what period time (i.e. how far back) does the OED intend to have main entries for all of the words that have been used in English? (See also “Revising the coverage of Old English in the OED” from the June 2002 OED News at http://dictionary.oed.com/public/news/0206_2.htm#oldenglish.)

16. What are the two sections of a “Main Entry”?

17. When does the OED include proper names?

18. How are the definitions arranged within an entry? (See also the article “'Ware man-traps: rethinking an OED entry” in the Sept. 2000 OED News, http://dictionary.oed.com/public/news/0009.htm#mantrap.)

19. What was J. R. R. Tolkien’s connection to the OED? See “J. R. R. Tolkien and the OED” in the June 2002 OED News at http://dictionary.oed.com/public/news/0206.htm#tolkien.

C. Find the following words in the OED and answer the questions given. You may need to use the help screens or the “Guide to OED entries” pages (see above) to figure how to read some parts of the entries. Note that the immediate source of a word is the source from which English obtained it; the ultimate source is the earliest ascertainable language in which it appears. The immediate and ultimate sources may be the same, but most often they are not.

1. autopsy. What is the immediate source of the word? Modern Latin autopsia

What is the ultimate source?

What does the term mean in its ultimate source?

2. contrary (verb). What does the dagger (†) in front of the main entry mean?

How was the word sometimes spelled in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries?

When is the OED’s last recorded use of the word as a verb?

When is its next-to-last recorded use?

3. curtain-lecture. What does the term mean?

Why the word curtain? (If you don’t know, look up curtain.)

Though it is not marked as such, this expression could be considered obsolete today. What evidence does the OED give for considering it obsolete?

4. demimonde. From what language did English borrow this word?

What does the || in front of the word signify?

Who invented the term?

5. fash (verb¹). What is the origin of the word?

What does it mean?

What regional restrictions are there on the word?

Which came first, noun¹ or verb¹?

6. wonder (noun). What is the origin of this word?

What is its earliest citation in English?

What is the cognate Swedish word?