GREAT DICTIONARY

Evening Post, Volume CV, Issue 123, 26 May 1928, Page 20

GREAT DICTIONARY

STORY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. I" The Oxford English Dictionary is at i test . complete. Hero is part of the wonderful story told in the "Periodical": The Dictionary contains a record of 41f,825 words, 240,165 of these are main, words, 67,105 subordinate words, 47,800 special combinajtions, 59,755 obvious combinations; > there are about 500,000 definitions and 11,827,306 illustrative quotations. The \ treatment of the oldest words covers a : period of 12 centuries. Each page ..contains' three columns 10JinI,long (112 ■lines on the average), and each column is 2 3-Bin wide. Basing calculation on the type most employed of the several varieties in use, and assuming that the pages are all full, a total is arrived at of 46,464 columns, which1 if placed end to ond would cover nine miles;' 178 miles of type, containing approximately 50,000,000 words and .227,779,589 letters and figures, not counting punctuation marks. Of the 240,165 main words ' in the whole of the "Oxford Diction*. ary" 177,970 are current, 52,464 are' obsolete, and 9731 alien. The letter S yields the most words, no fewer than 57,428, P coming next with 37,689, and C. third .with 29,295. There are 4746 wordi under XV Z together. It is perhaps not generally appreciated that what makes the "Oxford Dictionary" unique is its historical method; it is a Dictionary not of our English, but of all English; the English of Chaucer, of the Bible, and of Shakespeare is unfolded in it with the same wealth of illustration as is devoted to the most modern authors. When considered in this light, the fact that the first part of 1 the Dictionary was published in 1884 is «een to be relatively unimportant; 44 ■.years is a small period in the life of a language. It is, however, obviously desirable, that airplane and appendicitis should receive due recognition. A supplement is accordingly in preparation, the main object of which will be to include words which were born too ' late for inclusion. The' cost of manufacture has been borne by the Oxford "University Press. The outlay has been put at, £300,000.