FW: footnotes to recent discussions

[Frank Abate]

Just to reinforce what Larry and Fred have said:

>>
On Tue, 12 Feb 2002, Laurence Horn wrote:

> Maybe the old Shorter OED reflects British usage?

It wouldn't be the first time.

Fred Shapiro
<<

I hope I am not overstating the obvious here, but it seems that these points
are often overlooked:

American users (and others) should keep in mind that SOED and OED, not to
mention Concise Oxford, are British dicts, and best reflect British English.
This is not a criticism, but a mere statement of the situation as it is.
The latest (10th) edition of Concise did carefully try to discriminate
British, US, Canadian, and N American usages, and did a quite good job of
it.  The Brit lexos had the advantage of colleagues in the US and Canada who
were able to advise on usage in their own countries.  The labeling in the
Concise 10th reflects this.

Still, the approach of all the British-produced Oxford dictionaries is from
the standpoint of British English.  The defining uses British English, not
just in the spelling, but in usage/word choice.  Again, not a criticism --
American dicts all reflect an American perspective/bias, and that's only
natural.

There is no true "international" or "world" dict of English, despite some
past claims.  In fact, it may be impossible (and perhaps useless) to write a
"neutral" English dict.  One could try to cover more than one of the major
English dialects thoroughly in one work, but when it comes to writing
definitions, at least, there are cases where one cannot be "neutral".

It is also important to remember that OED is, on average (depending on the
letter), more than a century old, except for the revised 3rd edition parts
that have been released electronically in the OED Online -- a small
percentage of A-Z so far.  I find it surprising when OED defs and etyms are
cited as some sort of ultimate authority.  They are in great part fine, of
course.  But the defs, aside from reflecting British usage and being written
in British English, are quite old and do not reflect ANY usage more recent
than their vintage.  And OED etyms do not generally show the findings of the
past century or so.  OED 2nd edition corrected some egregious errors and
changed the prons to IPA, but otherwise it is the (consolidated) text as
laid down by Murray et al. and their successors through the Burchfield
supplements and later Addenda.  The great bulk of it is Victorian in
vintage.

SOED etyms, importantly, WERE recently revised, and do reflect much modern
work.  Overall, they are much more "up-to-date" than OED etyms.

While antedating OED evidence is important work, there are many places, too,
where it needs "postdating", revision (as in many etyms), and American (and
other non-British) evidence, historical and otherwise.

All this merely to say, use and cite OED and SOED judiciously.

Frank Abate
(quondam OUP lexicographer)