LINGUIST List 5.19

Tue 04 Jan 1994

Qs: Help on the new Oxford English Dictionary

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  • Alan Hughes, A New OED

    Message 1: A New OED

     Date: Tue, 4 Jan 94 09:55:11 GMTA New OED
    From: Alan Hughes <ahughes%prideoup.co.uk>
    Subject: A New OED


    An Appeal to the Scientific Community

    Work has recently begun at Oxford University Press on a comprehensive revision of the Oxford English Dictionary, to be published in 2005.

    As part of the process of revising and updating the Dictionary, we would like to encourage scientists who have information relevant to the OED to draw it to our attention.

    Such information may include:

    1) the coinages of particular scientific words

    2) factual errors in their definitions

    3) scientific words and meanings not in the OED

    4) earlier referenced examples of words and meanings already treated in the dictionary (and later examples of those described as obsolete)

    Category 4 is especially useful: the OED is a historical dictionary which attempts to trace every word and meaning back to its earliest known use in the English language, as well as giving references to the coinages of foreign precursors of English words.

    As an example, Professor Joshua Lederberg has mailed us about the omission of C. S. Peirce's philosophical sense of `abduction', not recorded in the OED, and his own coinage of the words `eugram' and `eugraphy'.

    Please email oed3oup.co.uk, or write to the Chief Science Editor, Oxford English Dictionary, Walton Street, Oxford OX2 6DP, UK. And pass this message on to whomever may be interested.

    Alan Hughes Chief Science Editor January 1994