OED editing, antedating peril ephemera, was Re: [ADS-L] The competitive sport of antedating

[Grant Barrett]

On Oct 19, 2007, at 07:35, Stephen Goranson wrote:
> A relatively simple change in editing practice could yield great
> improvements and speed contributions to learning.

Jesse and Jonathon have very ably responded already, but I think this
point needs to be further responded to.

I believe that "jazz" is a pet word for a handful of people. I
believe most people--scholars and musicians included--could give two
poots in a puddle about it. There are many pet words like that. "Emo"
is a hotly contested words for a certain crowd.

Should lexicographers prefer to work on entries for pet words over
any other part of a dictionary? No, they shouldn't. There are limited
budgets, limited personnel, and limited time. Even unpaid reading
programs cost precious pounds. Flights of fancy to work on pet words
may satisfy individuals, but not the larger goal of the project.

To put Jesse's point a different way: Every task in dictionary-making
is "simple," but there are oodles of simple tasks to each entry that
make up the time-consuming editing process. Once you crack open an
entry to make a quotation change, you are compelled to review the
entire thing. Does the new quote change any editorial notes? Does it
introduce new evidence that needs supporting or refuting? Do we refer
to that quote in another entry? There's always more than a simple
thing to fix.

Looking at this from a different angle, I'd say that excessive
attention to finding antedatings has distracted some very fine minds
that might better spend their time finding words which are so far
unrecorded in any dictionary. Antedatings are fun but rarely
profitable nor informative beyond the date itself. (Though I do have
that lexicographer's disease--one of many--that would like to see
"jazz" made right just for the sake of accuracy.)

Finally, Stephen, I think you are petitioning the wrong organization.
Instead, I'd be drafting your email as an article proposal and then
sending it as a query to various popular periodicals. Trumpet the
true story of jazz! That is the opening that OED's long update times
has left for you and other scholars. Get out there with factual,
interesting articles and widely report your antedatings and those of
your colleagues.

Grant Barrett
Double-Tongued Dictionary
http://www.doubletongued.org/
editor at doubletongued.org

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