Unlocking the English LanguageAs we grapple with an English language adapting and expanding faster than ever, Robert Burchfield offers a sane, humanistic, and historically illuminating account of how words enter our official vocabulary. In this lively collection of essays, he shows us that dictionaries, far from being static, are hotly contested social documents resulting from the interaction of the language, the lexicographer, and his times. Drawing on the author's thirty years' experience as the editor of the Supplement to the Oxford English Dictionary, this book gives us a firsthand account of the sorts of decisions lexicographers have confronted since Samuel Johnson's great dictionary (such as the uses of literary authority, the inclusion of "ethnic" vocabulary, the establishment of standard usage), as well as more contemporary issues, including the implications of compiling dictionaries in the computer age. There is also a wealth of insights into the history of our language, its rich past, and its potential future.--From publisher description. |
Contents
Linguistic Milestones | 3 |
The Naming of Parts | 21 |
The Boundaries of English Grammar | 40 |
Words and Meanings in the Twentieth Century | 61 |
The Treatment of Controversial Vocabulary in the Oxford English | 83 |
Ethnic Vocabulary and Dictionaries | 109 |
British and American English | 116 |
Common terms and phrases
adjective alphabetical American English Australian British Burchfield C. T. Onions called century Charles Cannan classes of words colleagues Concise Oxford Dictionary concord construction Coulton defined definition Dr Murray edition editors English grammar English language entry evidence expression files forms of English grammarians H. W. Fowler Henry historical illustrative examples infinitive J. R. R. Tolkien James Murray Johnson kind Latin letter lexicographers linguistic listed literary London Macquarie manner meaning medieval names Nathan Bailey normally nouns Ormulum Oxford English Dictionary period person phrase plural political present pronouns proprietary term publication published Quirk quotations Randolph Quirk record Rodney Huddleston scholars Sedbergh sense sentences Shakespeare Sisam speakers speech staff Standard English Suppl Supplement synchronic syntax T. S. Eliot trade mark treatment University Press verb vocabulary volumes Webster's Ninth Webster's Third writers written Zealand