"Form of Action" Not in OED

[Shapiro, Fred]

At this point I use "Merriam-Webster" to refer to the Collegiate, but thanks for pointing out the occurrence in W3.  It crossed my mind after sending the e-mail that that might be the case.

Fred Shapiro



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From: American Dialect Society [ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of Joanne Despres [jdespres at MERRIAM-WEBSTER.COM]
Sent: Tuesday, July 05, 2011 11:27 AM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: "Form of Action" Not in OED

"Form of action" actually is entered in Webster's Third.


Joanne Despres

-----Original Message-----
From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of Shapiro, Fred
Sent: Monday, July 04, 2011 9:17 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: "Form of Action" Not in OED

Victor,

Wow.  This omission is even more striking when one realizes that P is in the part of the alphabet that has been revised by the OED.

In general, law is perhaps the weakest subject area for the OED, although the 3rd edition is much stronger than the 1st edition for law.  Bryan Garner tried to launch a very ambitious project for an historical Oxford Law Dictionary some decades ago, but it fell through for lack of funding.

Fred



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From: American Dialect Society [ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of victor steinbok [aardvark66 at GMAIL.COM]
Sent: Saturday, July 02, 2011 6:16 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: "Form of Action" Not in OED

Speaking of legal terms--but with Latin origin--proseity and "per se" are in
the OED. "Pro se" is not.

VS-)

On Sat, Jul 2, 2011 at 9:08 AM, Shapiro, Fred <fred.shapiro at yale.edu> wrote:

>
> I notice that the very important historical legal term "form of action" is
> not in OED nor in Merriam-Webster.
>
> Fred Shapiro

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