OED vs. 18th Century CO (was Johnson's dictionary)

[RonButters at AOL.COM]

I certainly agree that a linguist who might be asked to give attorneys advice 
on 18th Century usage should consult primary sources, but attorneys are 
generally not professionally prepared to interpret the material that they would 
find in primary sources (including, for that matter, Johnson's DICTIONARY). The 
best bet for the nonprofessional is the OED--and even that is rather more 
complicated and linguistically nuanced than the attorney may be able to deal with. 
Not to mention that, considering what lawyers go for per hour, and the number 
of hours that such enterprises would entail, it makes far more sense--and is 
kinder to the pocketbook of the client--to hire a linguist to do this kind of 
work.


In a message dated 4/4/05 6:16:59 AM, fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU writes:


> On Mon, 4 Apr 2005 RonButters at AOL.COM wrote:
> 
> > I think Fred is saying that modern lawyers consult Johnson rather than
> > "Webster" because that is what the people who wrote the Constitution would 
> have
> > consulted, if anything.
> >
> > If so, modern lawyers are missing the point of a historical dictionary: 
> they
> > obviously ought to be consulting the OED, which takes Johnson into 
> account,
> > put looks at far more data than Johnson ever could have (even if he had 
> been
> > particularly interested in empirical evidence scientifically assembled an
> > analyzed).
> 
> Yes.  And perhaps even more than the OED they should be consulting
> Eighteenth Century Collections Online.
> 
> Fred Shapiro
>