Q: Using the OED's "not yet been fully updated/has been updated" dates?

[Victor Steinbok]

There is a greater problem lurking in that "previous edition" info. For
example, the entry for "collocation" carries with it the following warning:

> This entry has not yet been fully updated (first published 1891).

Wow! Since 1891! That's impressive! It also happens to be untrue. While
1.a., 1.b. and 2. appear to conform to this description, 1.c. stands out
because /all/ of its illustrations appear between 1940 and 1963.

> c. Linguistics. The habitual juxtaposition or association, in the
> sentences of a language, of a particular word with other particular
> words; a group of words so associated. Introduced by J. R. Firth as a
> technical term in modern Linguistics, but not fully separable from
> examples in sense 1a.
> 1940 G. L. Trager in Language XVI. 301 Collocation establishes
> categories by stating the elements with which the element being
> studied enters into possible combinations.
> 1940 G. L. Trager in Language XVI. 303 It is now necessary to
> establish the collocations of the various forms to see what their
> functions are.
> 1951 J. R. Firth in Ess. & Stud. IV. 123, I propose to bring forward
> as a technical term, meaning by ‘collocation’, and to apply the test
> of ‘collocability’.
> 1951 J. R. Firth in Ess. & Stud. IV. 124 General or usual collocations
> and more restricted technical or personal collocations.
> 1958 Trans. Philol. Soc. 103 Mutual accompaniment of grammatical
> categories is termed ‘colligation’; an accompaniment of forms, equally
> mutual but not generalisable in grammatical terms, is a ‘collocation’.
> 1963 R. M. W. Dixon Ling. Sci. & Logic 74 The collocation ‘round
> square’ can occur.

So what do these descriptions mean? It's been untouched since 1891,
except the part that obviously has been?

VS-)


On 9/15/2012 2:21 PM, Joel S. Berson wrote:
> At 9/14/2012 08:47 AM, Arnold Zwicky wrote:
>>> BTW the OED entry on "grisly" leaves a lot to be desired--it's outdated
>>> and inaccurate.
>> and it says so; the entry has a note that it is not yet fully
>> updated and was first published in 1900.
> With this new method (first published September 2012) of showing
> "editing history", how should one refer to the history of an entry
> (or edition of the OED) when submitting quotations?
>
> For an entry that "has been updated", e.g. "apple, n.", I assume one
> can refer to "OED3 March 2008", as one could have done previously.
>
> But for an entry that "has not yet been fully updated" -- such as
> "grisly, adj.", "first published 1900) -- should one refer to "OED 1900"?
>
> Previously I would refer to "OED2", but that notion now only appears
> in the "Previous version" information, as "From the second edition
> (1989)".  Should one refer to "OED 1989", which is less informative
> than the "first published" year?
>
> Joel

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