Does OED3 not know its nouns from its adjectives?

Joel S. Berson Berson at ATT.NET
Thu Jan 13 15:39:21 UTC 2011


Hovering over the current illustration on the OED's home page -- one
spot will tell you "This month's image: Mad Hatter's tea party" --
brings us some interesting "names" for the characters.

Alice is "Alice", and
The March Hare is "March hare".

Very good.

But:
The teapot is named "Lewis Carroll, creator of Alice, in the Oxford
DNB".  I suppose, if one can be introduced to, but cannot thereafter
cut, the pudding, then a teapot can have a name.

And:
The Mad Hatter is named "mad as a hatter", and
The dormouse is named "sleepy"!

If the last is intended as a noun -- Well, gentlemen, this is
Tenniel, not Walt Disney!

Joel

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org



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