Free OED

Through Febuary 5th, you can access the Oxford English Dictionary online for free by using trynewoed/trynewoed as a login.

• books
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• OED

The history of typography in the OED

Over at Bygone Bureau, Nick Martens puts on his palaeotypography hat and plunges into the Oxford English Dictionary to learn about the history of typography.

To beat fat, 1683, “If a Press-man Takes too much Inck with his Balls, he Beats Fat.”

• language
• Nick Martens
• oed
• typography

Historical Thesaurus of The Oxford English Dictionary

The folks at Oxford University Press have finally finished their Historical Thesaurus of The Oxford English Dictionary after more than 40 years of effort. The book contains 4448 pages and nearly every word in the English language (according to the OED). I like that the synonyms are listed chronologically but this thing is crying out to be put online (or in some electronic format)…what a boon it would be for period novelists to able to press the “write like they did in 1856” button. Available for pre-order at Amazon for $316. (via long now)

Update: There will be an online version of the thesaurus…at some point.

• books
• language
• oed

James Gleick on how the Oxford English

James Gleick on how the Oxford English Dictionary staff is dealing with the proliferation of words on the internet. “New words weren’t proliferating at quite the rate they have done in the last 10 years. Not just the Internet, but text messaging and so on has created lots and lots of new vocabulary.”

• dictionary
• jamesgleick
• language
• oed

Tenser, said the Tensor looked a little

Tenser, said the Tensor looked a little more closely at the list of cliches from Shakespeare that I posted earlier in the week and found that (at least) 18 of the expressions have earlier citations in the OED.

• dictionary
• language
• oed
• William Shakespeare