[Ads-l] Article in The Guardian: Inside the OED: can the world=?UTF-8?Q?=E2=80=99s_?=biggest dictionary survive the internet?

[Wilson Gray]

> _no sooner_ had Paton’s entry gone live in January _than_ someone ...

Does anybody else remember the battle in the '40's and '50's between

_no sooner ... than_ and _no sooner ... before_? E.g.

"Then, no sooner had Paton’s entry gone live in January before someone
emailed to point out that even this was inaccurate ..."

On Tue, Feb 27, 2018 at 4:42 AM, ADSGarson O'Toole <
adsgarsonotoole at gmail.com> wrote:

> Website: The Guardian
> Title: Inside the OED: can the world’s biggest dictionary survive the
> internet?
> Author: Andrew Dickson
> Timestamp: Fri 23 Feb 2018 01.00 EST
>
> https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/feb/23/oxford-
> english-dictionary-can-worlds-biggest-dictionary-survive-internet
>
> [Begin excerpt from beginning of article]
> In February 2009, a Twitter user called @popelizbet issued an
> apparently historic challenge to someone called Colin: she asked if he
> could “mansplain” a concept to her. History has not recorded if he
> did, indeed, proceed to mansplain. But the lexicographer Bernadette
> Paton, who excavated this exchange last summer, believed it was the
> first time anyone had used the word in recorded form. “It’s been
> deleted since, but we caught it,” Paton told me, with quiet
> satisfaction.
> [End excerpt]
>
> [Begin excerpt from end of article]
> A few days ago, I emailed to see if “mansplain” had finally reached
> the OED. It had, but there was a snag – further research had pushed
> the word back a crucial six months, from February 2009 to August 2008.
> Then, no sooner had Paton’s entry gone live in January than someone
> emailed to point out that even this was inaccurate: they had spotted
> “mansplain” on a May 2008 blog post, just a month after the writer
> Rebecca Solnit had published her influential essay Men Explain Things
> to Me. The updated definition, Proffitt assured me, will be available
> as soon as possible.
> [End excerpt]
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>



-- 
-Wilson
-----
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-Mark Twain

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