Naturalization and Indian English
“I had some lovely andouillette /ˌɒndwɪˈɛt/,” said Charlie.“You mean /ɑ̃dujɛt/,” replied Sam. Do you side with Charlie or Sam? English dictionaries have wrestled for over 100 years with how to…
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Football in the Historical Thesaurus of the OED
In September we published a football-themed batch of new words in preparation for the World Cup (see OED September 2022 release notes). This batch contained plenty of exotic-sounding and highly…
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Comic Strips and the OED
When revising an OED entry, our chief concern is that the quotations reflect the reality of current and historical usage: we include the earliest example of a word, sense, or…
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So, it’s the OED update, obvs
‘So, it’s time for the latest update to OED, including lots of new words and senses.’ ‘You’d better be doing that because the update includes the use of so at…
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Panel Discussion: Bermudian English in the Oxford English Dictionary
This event has now happened, and the recording will be available soon – watch this space! In this talk, the panellists will comment on the uniqueness of Bermudian English, and…
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Toppers, pipperoos, and rumptydoolers: ‘excellent’ words in the Historical Thesaurus of the OED
In a recent blog post on the Historical Thesaurus of the OED (HTOED), we noted that one of the categories which has expanded significantly in recent years is excellent. To…
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Shock! Horror! It’s a shaggy dog story.
The September OED release includes revised entries for SHOCK and related words. An intriguing group of words for dogs, dating back to the early modern period, is included in this…
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Cabinet reshuffle: from furniture to politics in a single OED entry
Working on the OED is a constant education. Not only are you exposed to words and ideas from fields far beyond your own, but even everyday terms and expressions can…
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OED September 2022 release notes: New Words
This quarterly update for the OED is top banana, no doubt about it. As usual, new entries have been created as part of our wide-ranging revision process, and we’ll talk…
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To make mangoes of melons: Using the evolution of form and senses to understand historical cookbooks
Historical recipes: technical manuals? As a PhD student at the University of Central Florida’s Texts and Technology program, I have primarily been studying historical and modern cookbooks and recipes as…
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