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Inside the OED: can the world’s biggest dictionary survive the internet?

theguardian.com

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Re: Inside the OED: can the world’s biggest dictionary survive the internet?

#21

Post by thaumasiotes »

forapurpose wrote: post #17

There's a well-known narrative that before the Internet, for all of human history, information was scarce and humans found ways to adapt; and since the Internet, information has been overwhelming and humans must find different ways to adapt. What is disappointing to me is that, with so many more options, people have not adapted by utilizing only the best information. Anyone can read the best sources (with a major exc…

> I know many people will say that they can get a dictionary for free, why use the OED. The problem is that those who know better are not standing up to assert why it is superior, necessary, and incredibly valuable to the world.

There are a couple of problems with this.

First, the OED is primarily a work of historical scholarship. Anyone in the market for a dictionary so that they can look up the meanings of words would be better off getting something else, like Merriam-Webster or really anything. The OED is not a good choice for this purpose.

Second, a story: I spent a semester studying Chinese in a foreign student program at a Chinese school. Like everybody else, I used Pleco for my dictionary needs.

My friends in the class quickly noticed that I was getting much better dictionary value from my installation of Pleco than they were getting from theirs. When one of them asked how I was doing it, I responded "I bought for-pay dictionaries" and they immediately lost interest.

There was no need for me to assert that the dictionaries I was using were superior and valuable -- my friends had already come to that conclusion themselves by watching me. They just weren't willing to pay $20 for that additional value.

Re: Inside the OED: can the world’s biggest dictionary survive the internet?

#22

Post by shullbitt0r »

mmjaa wrote: post #4

I'd rather like to have a service that allows me to construct my own dictionaries. There have got to be some standard OpenSource/GNU-like tools that give a budding lexicographer the things they need to construct dictionaries - does anyone know what these tools are, and how effective they are at creating custom dictionaries?

Your Brain? I know it deteriorates if not used frequently and especially if you can rely on look up tables, but really, there is no replacement. Only supplements. Collections of cards in shoe cartons are used by libraries.

What else do you need? A hypergraph of word-vertexes and relation-edges animated in webgl, layered by categories and streamed from an elastic back end? That's your brain.

Re: Inside the OED: can the world’s biggest dictionary survive the internet?

#23

Post by kragen »

The OED can not only survive the internet; it will flourish on the internet. We can incorporate the entire thing into Wiktionary, which, as https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16461656 points out, is already in some ways more comprehensive and reliable. Unfortunately, for copyright reasons, we have to go back to its first edition, and even the last volume of the first edition might still be in copyright.

I announced the project at https://www.mail-archive.com/kragen-tol@canonical.org/msg001..., bought a copy of the dictionary, and spent a bunch of nights at the archive scanning its volumes. https://old.datahub.io/dataset/oed talks a bit about the available data halfway through the project. I did eventually scan the whole thing, and since then other people have contributed other scans. So far nobody has OCRed it and imported it wholesale into Wiktionary.

At some point I hacked together a web service that would show you the page image for a given word (perhaps after a few tries), but I don't have it running now. https://archive.org/details/oed11_201407 seems to be a downloadable program that does something similar.

It's really unfortunate that the past century of work at the Oxford University Press will be lost and have to be redone. Such is the price of copyright.

Re: Inside the OED: can the world’s biggest dictionary survive the internet?

#24

Post by forapurpose »

eschevarria wrote: post #18

“In February 2009, a Twitter user called @popelizbet issued an apparently historic challenge to someone called Colin: she asked if he could ‘mansplain’ a concept to her. History has not recorded if he did, indeed, proceed to mansplain. But the lexicographer Bernadette Paton, who excavated this exchange last summer, believed it was the first time anyone had used the word in recorded form. ‘It’s been deleted since, but…

> One Wiktionary contributor did a better job

If we define "better" by speed, then every HN comment is better than every book ever published, and all the blog posts on climate change are better than the scientific research. I find it's the opposite: The things that take longer to publish are usually better.

Re: Inside the OED: can the world’s biggest dictionary survive the internet?

#25

Post by forapurpose »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #21
forapurpose wrote: post #17

There's a well-known narrative that before the Internet, for all of human history, information was scarce and humans found ways to adapt; and since the Internet, information has been overwhelming and humans must find different ways to adapt. What is disappointing to me is that, with so many more options, people have not adapted by utilizing only the best information. Anyone can read the best sources (with a major exc…

> I know many people will say that they can get a dictionary for free, why use the OED. The problem is that those who know better are not standing up to assert why it is superior, necessary, and incredibly valuable to the world. There are a couple of problems with this. First, the OED is primarily a work of historical scholarship. Anyone in the market for a dictionary so that they can look up the meanings of words wo…

> the OED is primarily a work of historical scholarship. Anyone in the market for a dictionary so that they can look up the meanings of words would be better off getting something else

I couldn't disagree more strongly. I use it to learn the meanings of words and there is no better source:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16461549

Re: Inside the OED: can the world’s biggest dictionary survive the internet?

#26

Post by walterbell »

kragen wrote: post #23

The OED can not only survive the internet; it will flourish on the internet. We can incorporate the entire thing into Wiktionary, which, as https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16461656 points out, is already in some ways more comprehensive and reliable. Unfortunately, for copyright reasons, we have to go back to its first edition, and even the last volume of the first edition might still be in copyright. I announced…

Are you familiar with this scan+index? https://archive.org/details/oed11_201407

Re: Inside the OED: can the world’s biggest dictionary survive the internet?

#27

Post by kragen »

walterbell wrote: post #26
kragen wrote: post #23

The OED can not only survive the internet; it will flourish on the internet. We can incorporate the entire thing into Wiktionary, which, as https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16461656 points out, is already in some ways more comprehensive and reliable. Unfortunately, for copyright reasons, we have to go back to its first edition, and even the last volume of the first edition might still be in copyright. I announced…

Are you familiar with this scan+index? https://archive.org/details/oed11_201407

I wasn't, no! Which scan did he use? I've added that to my comment.

Re: Inside the OED: can the world’s biggest dictionary survive the internet?

#28

Post by thaumasiotes »

forapurpose wrote: post #25
thaumasiotes wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I know many people will say that they can get a dictionary for free, why use the OED. The problem is that those who know better are not standing up to assert why it is superior, necessary, and incredibly valuable to the world. There are a couple of problems with this. First, the OED is primarily a work of historical scholarship. Anyone in the market for a dictionary so that they can look up the meanings of words wo…

> the OED is primarily a work of historical scholarship. Anyone in the market for a dictionary so that they can look up the meanings of words would be better off getting something else I couldn't disagree more strongly. I use it to learn the meanings of words and there is no better source: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16461549

If you want to know the meaning of words hundreds of years in the past, the OED is a good choice. That question is relevant to almost no one. If you want the current meaning, the OED is a poor choice.

Re: Inside the OED: can the world’s biggest dictionary survive the internet?

#29

Post by pm215 »

eulevik wrote: post #11
Myrmornis wrote: post #2

I miss the OED. I consulted it in my parents’ house as a teenager, and ever since I have been too lazy or cheap to acquire a copy, whether paper or otherwise. Basically I want an electronic copy, but $295 annual subscription seems steep compared to the price of paper copies ($50 it looks like). It hardly needs saying that the dictionaries freely available online are not adequate replacements.

Your library may provide access to members. For example, State Library of New South Wales.

Yes. Most UK libraries have a setup so that their members can use the online OED from anywhere on the internet (you just have to enter your library card number). It uses cookies so you don't have to log in every time you want to look up a word, so the user-experience can be very convenient. I have a firefox keyword search shortcut for it.

Re: Inside the OED: can the world’s biggest dictionary survive the internet?

#30

Post by tardygrad »

I found The Surgeon of Crowthorne by Simon Winchester to be a fascinating read about James Murray and how he came to write the OED.

It is ironic that the definitive book on the English language was compiled by an American, and that he made it while he was incarcerated in an asylum for murder just makes the tale more interesting.

Simon Winchester is an excellent storyteller and the Surgeon of Crowthorne is an entertaining and insightful book - highly recommended!

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