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Oxford University Press
THE HISTORY OF THE OXFORD ENGLISH DICTIONARY
The Oxford English Dictionaryhas been the last word on
words for over a century. But, as with a respected professor or
admired parent, we count on its wisdom and authority without thinking
much about how it was acquired. What is the history of the Oxford
English Dictionary? Exploring its origins and development will
give new insight into this extraordinary, living document. [How it began] When the members of the Philological Society of London decided, in
1857, that existing English language dictionaries were incomplete and
deficient, and called for a complete re-examination of the language
from Anglo-Saxon times onward, they knew they were embarking on an
ambitious project. However, even they didn't realize the full extent
of the work they initiated, or how long it would take to achieve the
final result. The project proceeded slowly after the Society's first grand
statement of purpose. Eventually, in 1879, the Society made an
agreement with the Oxford University Press and James A. H. Murray to
begin work on a New English Dictionary (as the Oxford
English Dictionarywas then known). [More Work Than They Thought] The new dictionary was planned as a four-volume, 6,400-page work
that would include all English language vocabulary from the Early
Middle English period (1150 AD) onward, plus some earlier words if they
had continued to be used into Middle English. It was estimated that the project would be finished in approximately
ten years. Five years down the road, when Murray and his colleagues
had only reached as far as the word "ant", they realized it
was time to reconsider their schedule. It was not surprising that the
project was taking longer than anticipated. Not only are the
complexities of the English language formidable, but it also never
stops evolving. Murray and his Dictionary colleagues had to keep track
of new words and new meanings of existing words at the same time that
they were trying to examine the previous seven centuries of the
language's development. Murray and his team did manage to publish the first part (or "fascicle,"
to use the technical term) in 1884, but it was clear by this point
that a much more comprehensive work was required than had been
imagined by the Philological Society almost thirty years earlier. [One Step at a Time] Over the next four decades work on the Dictionary continued and new
editors joined the project. Murray now had a large team directed by
himself, Henry Bradley, W.A. Craigie, and C.T. Onions. These men
worked steadily, producing fascicle after fascicle until finally, in
April, 1928, the last volume was published. Instead of 6,400 words in
four volumes, the Dictionary published under the imposing name A
New English Dictionary on Historical Principles contained over
400,000 words and phrases in ten volumes. Sadly, Murray did not live
to see the completion of his great work; he died in 1915. The work to
which he had devoted his life represented an achievement unprecedented
in the history of publishing anywhere in the world. The Dictionary had
taken its place as the ultimate authority on the language. [Keeping it Current] An exhilarating aspect of a living language is that it continually
changes. This means that no dictionary is ever really finished. After
fifty years of work on the first edition, the editors must have found
this fact exhausting to contemplate. Nevertheless, as soon as the
original ten volumes of the New English Dictionarywere
completed, Craigie and Onions, the two editors still involved with the
project, began updating it. In 1933, a single-volume Supplement
to the Dictionary was published. Also at this time the original
Dictionary was reprinted in twelve volumes and the work was formally
given its current title, the Oxford English Dictionary. The twelve-volume Oxford English Dictionaryand the
single-volume Supplement represented the final statement from
Oxford for many years to come. However, in 1957, Robert Burchfield was
appointed Editor for a new Supplement that would replace the
1933 volume and include much new information on the language
(especially on twentieth century vocabulary) obtained in the
intervening years. Modern English was continuously monitored by the
Dictionary's celebrated "reading program", more scientific
and technical terms were added, and the scope of the Dictionary was
broadened to include considerably more words from North America,
Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, the Indian subcontinent, and the
Caribbean. Substantially longer than the 1933 edition, this new Supplement
was published in four volumes between 1972 and 1986. [Making it Modern] In 1982, as Burchfield's work on the Supplement came within
sight of the completion, Oxford University Press debated how to bring
this monumental dictionary into the modern age. It soon became clear
that the traditional methods of compiling entries would have to be
updated, and that the source material should be transferred from paper
to an electronic medium. The enterprise must change to deploy project
managers and systems engineers as well as lexicographers. The Press
duly set about this with the formation of the New Oxford English
Dictionary Project in 1984. The team was given the objective of
publishing an integrated print edition in 1989 and also of providing a
full, electronic text to form the basis of future revision and
extension of the Dictionary. How do you take a multi-volume, century-old, print-based reference
work and turn it into a machine-readable resource? By spending $13.5
million over five years in the most adventurous computerization
project seen in the publishing industry at that time. Bespoke computer
systems were built for both pre-processing the text and editing it in
electronic form; text was marked up in the (then) novel SGML encoding
scheme; the pages of the old edition and the Supplement were
typed again by 120 keyboarders; and more than 50 proofreaders checked
the results of their work. In Oxford John Simpson and Edmund Weiner
with a core group of lexicographers reviewed, corrected, and edited
this new electronic dictionary, as well as adding 5,000 new words and
senses to 400,000 definitions previously expressed in 60,000,000
words. In all, the Project team succeeded in accomplishing around 85
per cent of its work by software, but the remaining 15 per cent
required the critical eye of the editors. The culmination of this
mammoth task was the setting in type and subsequent printing of the
Oxford English Dictionary, Second Edition. In 1989 this was
published on time, to great acclaim. The finished work, edited by
Simpson and Weiner, fills 22,000 pages which are bound in twenty
substantial volumes. [Into the Electronic Age] In 1992 the Oxford English Dictionaryagain made history
when a CD-ROM edition of the work was published. Suddenly a massive,
twenty-volume work that takes up four feet of shelf space and weighs
150 pounds is reduced to a slim, shiny disk that takes up virtually no
space and weighs just a few ounces. The Oxford English Dictionaryon CD-ROM has been a great
success. The electronic format has revolutionized the way people use
the Dictionary to search and retrieve information. Complex
investigations into word origins or quotations that would have been
impossible to conduct using the print edition now take only a few
seconds. Because the electronic format makes the Oxford English
Dictionaryso easy to use, its audience now embraces all kinds of
interested readers beyond the confines of the scholarly community. [The Future has Begun] Today, once again, the Oxford English Dictionaryis under
alteration. Continuing the technological innovations, the Dictionary
will be available in a new online publication in 1999. This new
electronic edition, like the previous CD-ROM, will be designed to take
full advantage of this powerful and accessible medium. The content of the Dictionary is also being comprehensively revised.
However, instead of adding new material in supplements to the main
edition, or simply interspersing new information throughout the body
of the old edition, the entire work is being updated. This is the
first time material written by Murray and the early editors has been
changed since they finished in 1928. The result of this ambitious
undertaking will be a completely revitalized Oxford English
Dictionary. At no period in its history has the Oxford English Dictionarybeen profitable commercially for Oxford University Press. However, the
Press remains committed to sustaining research into the origins and
development of the English language wherever it is spoken. This
commitment to the cultural values embodied in the Dictionary is shown
by the $55 million funding of the current revision program and the
associated program for new words. The remedial work of revising
original 19th and early 20th century editorial material is expected to
take until 2010. In the interim, results of the revision program and
additions of new words -- approximately 10,000 new or revised entries
-- will be published online every three months. The ambitious goals which the Philological Society set out in 1857
seem modest in comparison with the phenomenal achievement which their
initiative set in motion. The Oxford English Dictionaryis a
living document that has been growing and changing for 140 years. Far
more than a convenient place to look up words and their origins, the
Oxford English Dictionaryis an irreplaceable part of English
culture. It not only provides an important record of the evolution of
our language, but also documents the continuing development of our
society. It is certain to continue in this role as we enter the new
century.
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