What's in a new word? by OED. Flashcards
What do “OED” define what should a dictionary de/be/show?
According to the first part of the article, although the process of adding new words is “highly selective” and is a “long-process” before it reaches the printing stage, the category of the “word” depends on a variety of factors. A word can range from being silly or can have a ‘rich linguistic heritage’.
Where exactly do OED find these words?
It depends on a variety of factors such as geographic location, subject area etc. Readers are employed to read printed material of all sorts such as newspapers, novels and films. Additionally, the Internet is also used as a mean of resource, and voluntary contributions are also provided by members of the general public in finding ‘new words and senses’. The results are assessed and analysed to give a census of the latest information on the frequency and currently of a particular usage.
What does ‘OED’ mean to do?
OED as a means ‘recording and describing the usage of a word over a period of time and provide a historical perspective for we items we include.
What does the aim of OED contrast with?
such a contrast to what certain prescriptivists were saying about dictionaries should be? Here, we’re seeing the dictionary used from a descriptivist point of view. For it’ a tool for them to make encapsulate the changes that to language as we progress to the future.
What is the metaphor that the writer uses to represent dictionaariyes and dictionary mkaing?
The metaphor that compares lexicographers to ‘19th-century gold panners’ who ‘must sift, and sift again to find true gold.’ If we analyse the lexical choice, the concrete noun “panner” denotes the act of washing gravel to find gold. Linking with dictionary making we can connote that the concrete noun “gravel” are new words that lexicographers often have to sift through, most of these words are unnecessary or not what they want, or inappropriate.
they all have to go through all of it if they want to find the ‘gold.’
Gold is another concrete noun it either denotes the metal or the color. It has connotations of not only being rare, highly valuable but also precious and desirable. Just like those certain words mentioned previously in the same paragraph that is able to “leave a lasting contribution to the rich linguistic heritage of a nation.”
What language change ideas can dictionaries affect?
We’ve read about certain prescriptivists that have seen dictionaries as a means of enforcing Standard English to save it from ‘corruption’ such as Johnson’s Dictionary. However, after reading the philosophy of Oxford English Dictionary. They have different views on language change but they view the use of dictionaries in completely opposite ways. Johnson views dictionaries from a “prescriptivist” point of view whilst (OED) view it as a descriptivist.
What do both dictionaries both share?
However, these labels are not fixed as both dictionaries can share both functions not solely as a means of enforcing correct usage of spelling & grammar but recording and describing usage over a period a time. Johnson learned this when he found that despite creating the dictionary as a means to “embalm Standard English saving it from ‘corruption and decay’ he couldn’t stop language change.
