Jim Koepke
05-19-2013, 1:37 PM
Interesting story about the Oxford English Dictionary in the news.
For those not familiar the OED includes information on first known uses of words in print and the sentence in which it was used with source citations.
It now appears one of the sources, Meanderings of Memory from 1852, can not be found. It was used as the original source on about 47 words in the OED.
There is much speculation about this including things about the source not existing (fabricated just to coin a few new words) to its being pornographic.
Interesting read:
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2013/05/oxford-english-dictionary-mystery-meanderings-of-memory.html
jtk
For those not familiar the OED includes information on first known uses of words in print and the sentence in which it was used with source citations.
It now appears one of the sources, Meanderings of Memory from 1852, can not be found. It was used as the original source on about 47 words in the OED.
There is much speculation about this including things about the source not existing (fabricated just to coin a few new words) to its being pornographic.
Interesting read:
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2013/05/oxford-english-dictionary-mystery-meanderings-of-memory.html
jtk