March 2004 newsletter

Even now, over 200 years after his death, Samuel Johnson remains arguably the most famous lexicographer of all time; and of course the OED is indebted to his great Dictionary of 1755 in many ways, not least in the quotations he collected and used in his entries.

However, the task of validating these quotations — in other words, of bringing them up to the bibliographical standards of the OED — is by no means a simple one. Even with the facility to search huge databases of English via the Web, there is still plenty of work for ‘harmless drudges’ to do in tracking down quotations, and Veronica Hurst pays tribute to the work of the volunteers who have helped us.

Another army of volunteers has focused its attention on a very different area of enquiry: the vocabulary of science fiction. Individuals have always sent us the fruits of their investigations into the language, but here too the Web has opened up new ways of working, with impressive results, as Jesse Sheidlower explains in his article.

Finally, on a lighter note, I'm delighted to include Bernie Paton's report ‘from the wordface’ on what I like to think of as the world's first (and only woolly...) BASE jumper.

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