The Oxford English Dictionary by John Andrew Simpson

But Simpson also reminds us of the limitations of language: spending his days in the OED's house of words, his family at home is forced to confront the challenges of wordlessness.Ī brilliant and deeply humane expedition through the world of words, The Word Detective will delight and inspire any lover of language. Throughout, he enlivens his narrative with lively excavations and investigations of individual words - from deadline to online and back to 101 (yes, it's a word) - all the while reminding us that the seemingly mundane words (can you name the four different meanings of ma?) are often the most interesting ones. In The Word Detective, an intensely personal memoir and a joyful celebration of English, he weaves a story of how words come into being (and sometimes disappear), how culture shapes the language we use, and how technology has transformed not only the way we speak and write but also how words are made. Simpson spent almost four decades of his life immersed in the intricacies of our language, and guides us through its history with charmingly laconic wit.

And there is no better guide to the dictionary's many wonderments than the former chief editor of the OED, John Simpson. by the publication of the Second (unrevised) Edition of the Dictionary in 1989 and the accompanying plans to computerise and update the Dictionary of which the Second Edition (OED2) represented the rst phase.

The answers to all of these questions - and a great many more - can be found in the pages of the Oxford English Dictionary, the definitive record of the English language. Published by Blackwell Publishing, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA. 'Loanword etymologies in the third edition of the OED: the benefits of a consistent methodology. Can you drink a glass of balderdash? What do you call the part of a dog's back it can't scratch? And if, serendipitously, you find yourself in Serendip, then where exactly are you?

The Oxford English Dictionary by John Andrew Simpson