eBook

Empire of words

Willinsky, John

2001,1994,1995

Overview

What is the meaning of a word? Most readers turn to the dictionary for authoritative meanings and correct usage. But what is the source of authority in dictionaries? Some dictionaries employ panels of experts to fix meaning and prescribe usage, others rely on derivation through etymology. But perhaps no other dictionary has done more to standardize the English language than the formidable twenty-volume Oxford English Dictionary in its 1989 second edition. Yet this most Victorian of modern dictionaries derives its meaning by citing the earliest known usage of words and by demonstrating shades of meaning through an awesome database of over five million examples of usage in context. In this fascinating study, John Willinsky challenges the authority of this imperial dictionary, revealing many of its inherent prejudices and questioning the assumptions of its ongoing revision. \"Clearly, the OED is no simple record of the language `as she is spoke,'\" Willinsky writes. \"It is a selective representation reflecting certain elusive ideas about the nature of the English language and people. Empire of Words reveals, by statistic and table, incident and anecdote, how serendipitous, judgmental, and telling a task editing a dictionary such as the OED can be.\"

• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Subject: A Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English / A Dictionary of the English Language / A New English Dictionary / After Babel / Aldous Huxley / Author / Books of authority / Clarence Barnhart / Coventry Patmore / Culture and Anarchy / D. H. Lawrence / Edmond Malone / Edward Said / Encyclopedias and dictionaries / English language / English language -- Etymology / English language -- Lexicography / English poetry / English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh / Eric Partridge / Ernest Renan / Essay / Etymology / European / Ezra Pound / H. G. Wells / Handwriting / Harriet Martineau / Henry More / Herbert Coleridge / History and criticism / Horace Walpole / J. R. R. Tolkien / Jargon / John Horne Tooke / Joseph Conrad / Jude the Obscure / Julian Barnes / Karl Shapiro / Language & Literature / Lexicography / LITERARY CRITICISM / LITERARY CRITICISM / European / English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh / Literature / Mary Russell Mitford / Metonymy / Most common words in English / Of Education / Original intent / Ormulum / Otto Jespersen / Oxford English Dictionary / Pen name / Philemon Holland / Philology / Poetic diction / Poetry / Polonius / Post-structuralism / Precaution (novel) / Preface / Ralph Waldo Emerson / Romanticism / Samuel Pepys / Scriptorium / Sir Thomas Elyot / Superiority (short story) / Table Alphabeticall / The Day of Doom / The Faerie Queene / The New Machiavelli / Thesaurus / Trivium / Uncle Tom / Various authors / Walter Pater / William Langland / William Shakespeare / William Tyndale
• ISBN: 0691037191, 9780691037196, 1400821355, 9781400821358