Az Eszterházy Károly Tanárképző Főiskola Tudományos Közleményei. 1996. Vol. 1. Eger Journal of English Studies.(Acta Academiae Paedagogicae Agriensis : Nova series ; Tom. 24)
Geoff Barnbrook: From description to prescription and back again
5 The Oxford English Dictionary The Oxford English Dictionary is undoubtedly the most monumental of all the monolingual English dictionaries, although it is, in many ways, a mistake to think of it as being in the mainstream of the development process. Originally conceived by the Philological Society as a supplement to update the major existing dictionaries, such as Johnson's Dictionary and Richardson's A New Dictionary of the English Language , it became apparent very early in its development that a substantial work would be needed which would actually replace these other works. Trench (1857) laid down the basis for construction of such a dictionary, and a massive reading project was set in motion by the Society to collect data for it. Under the chief editorship of James Murray until his death in 1915, A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles , later The Oxford English Dictionary , was published between 1879 and 1928. A supplement was needed almost immediately, and was published in 1933. A further four volume supplement was produced by a completely new editorial team between 1957 and 1986, and a reset, reordered and enlarged Second Edition was published in 1989. A completely revised Third Edition is expected early next century. The scale of the OED is prodigious and overwhelming, but it is still very much a 19th century dictionary. Although it represents a magnificent achievement for its time, it suffers from the inherent impossibility of the task that its compilers set themselves, at least at the time at which the original work was carried out. Given the full involvement of computer technology the problems involved in its production are likely to be far less intractable, though still by no means easy to overcome. The OED sets out to document the development of the entire vocabulary of English from the 12th century onwards, including as many obsolete and non-standard dialect terms as possible. It attempts to show the entire life cycle of each word sense, from its entry into English, including its ultimate discernible etymological origins in older forms of English and other languages, to either the 'present' day (often the mid-nineteenth century) or to the point at which it became obsolete. In addition to the definitions, past and present variants in spelling are shown and, where possible, dated quotations are given for every sense identified. Senses of the same word form are grouped together to give an 26
