Words from Popular Literature Not in OED

Fred Shapiro fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU
Tue Nov 7 19:54:07 UTC 2006


On Sat, 4 Nov 2006, Jeff Prucher wrote:

> love to see it, if it does.)  Or is your query not about spreading into wider,
> albeit still limited, currency but rather about words coined in major literary
> works generally?

My point is that the original OED included many words solely on the basis
of their usage in major literary (or even not-so-major literary) works.
I am not sure whether the same policy is being followed in the current
revision.  My question is perhaps a politically incorrect one, since the
usual criticism of OED nowadays is the opposite, that the original OED
privileged literary usage over demotic usage (although I am using
"literary" in a very demotic sense, as illustrated by my examples from
Vonnegut and Superman Comics).

> Editor, BRAVE NEW WORDS: THE OXFORD DICTIONARY OF SCIENCE FICTION
> Forthcoming Spring 2007

Is this a historical dictionary with citations of first use?

Fred Shapiro


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Fred R. Shapiro                             Editor
Associate Librarian for Collections and     YALE BOOK OF QUOTATIONS
   Access and Lecturer in Legal Research     Yale University Press
Yale Law School                             ISBN 0300107986
e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu               http://quotationdictionary.com
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