HARDY FORUM ARCHIVE HO2038 5/29/02 " WESSEX IN OED" =================================================== From: NMZEITLER@aol.com Date: Wed, 29 May 2002 00:06:44 EDT Subject: Wessex and OED Does anyone know why the original OED listings for "W" in the '20's (as published together in the first 1933 twelve volume ed.) fail to include Wessex? Sussex is there; Essex is there, and under Winchester we find that it was the capitol of Wessex, so the OED uses a word it fails to define. The second (current) ed. has the familiar listing, mentioning TH's contribution, but this is a much later addition. I was hoping to place the OED - Hardy connection back to the 20's and Hardy's lifetime, paralleling the dictionary's reaching "Wessex" to the term's critical/common association with TH. Thanks, Michael. ========== From: "Michael Barry" Subject: Re: Wessex and OED Date: Wed, 1 Jan 1997 00:49:42 -0000 My own Shorter OED is also 1933 and confirms what you say. Maybe it's because Wessex no longer exists, whereas the others you mention do. It was at one time the biggest country in these islands - and I think I'm right in saying that Alfred expanded it to include London at one point. It yielded the subsequent English royal family. This is Wessex' reality. Hardy "recreated" it as a fictional fantasy, which maybe why the editors ignored it? M Barry ========== Date: Wed, 5 Jun 2002 18:48:30 +0100 (BST) From: Michael Day lismd@bath.ac.uk Subject: Re: Wessex and OED On Wed, 29 May 2002 NMZEITLER@aol.com wrote: > Does anyone know why the original OED listings for "W" in the '20's > (as published together in the first 1933 twelve volume ed.) fail to > include Wessex? I'm no historian of lexicography but can think of at least two possible explanations. 1. Timing - the final volume of the Oxford English Dictionary was published in 1928. However, work on producing the dictionary had started almost fifty years before (1879). By the 1920s, it was recognised that many words or new definitions were lacking. In order to remedy this, a single volume supplement was planned. The short history printed in the first volume of the 2nd edition of the OED (1989) says that although a mass of quotations had already been amassed, the scope of the supplement would be "in the main restricted to the treatment of those accessions of words and senses which had taken place during the preceding fifty years" (p. xlvi). Work on an additional supplement began in 1957 and was based on a completely new reading programme. This was published in four volumes between 1972 and 1986. It should be noted, however, that some of Hardy's word usage had already been considered for inclusion in the dictionary. It is known that James A. H. Murray (the first editor) had written to TH to enquire the meaning of the word "terminatory," as used in one of his novels (Murray, ms. Lecture on Dictionaries (1910) cited in: Murray, K.M.E., Caught in the web of words: James A. H. Murray and the Oxford English Dictionary," New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1977, p. 201). 2. Editorial policy - it is also possible that the word "Wessex" was known but deliberately excluded from the original OED by its editors. For example, the term may have been considered archaic (many Old English terms would have been excluded because they had not been in recent usage) or omitted as a proper name. If the latter, it may have been permitted to appear in the 1933 supplement. The short history quoted above states that the 1933 supplement "went somewhat beyond the limits of the main dictionary, in its more generous inclusion of proper names; but, even so, these were not admitted unless they had some allusive interest or were important for some linguistic, literary, or historical reason" (p. xlvi). It would certainly be interesting to know in which one of the supplements the word "Wessex" first appeared (The library at the University of Bath only has the 2nd edition of 1989). > I was hoping to place the OED - Hardy connection back to the 20's and > Hardy's lifetime, paralleling the dictionary's reaching "Wessex" to > the term's critical/common association with TH. Thanks, Michael. The earliest authority given in the 2nd edition of the OED (1989) is from William Barnes and is dated 1868 (Preface to "Poems of rural life in common English"). Barnes had certainly had used the term before, e.g. in a paper on "Ancient Dorset," published in the Archaeological Journal in 1865 (Vol. XXII, pp. 278-294). The earliest TH quotation given is from the Cornhill Magazine of 1874 (Far from the Madding Crowd). I'm sorry that all this is a bit speculative. Michael Day * Research Officer, UKOLN The UK Office for Library and Information * * Networking, University of Bath, Claverton Down, Bath BA2 7AY. * * Tel. +44 (0)1225 323923 Fax +44 (0)1225 826838 * ========== Date: Thu, 6 Jun 2002 16:10:11 +0100 (BST) From: Michael Day Subject: Re: Wessex and OED On Thu, 6 Jun 2002, Rosemarie Morgan wrote: > Irony, Michael? A little. :-) > There is no entry for "Wessex" in my O.E.D whereas Webster has two > entries-- one of which is devoted to Hardy. Interestingly (or maybe not!), I decided to look up the word that Elisabeth Murray had quoted from her grandfather's lecture as being the one that he had written to Hardy to clarify its meaning. Strangely, I found no authority given from TH for "terminatory." However, a quotation from TH was given for the third definition of "terminatively," i.e. "So as to terminate, ie. close or bring to an end; finally; conclusively." The quotation is from Tess, chapter 17 (Mr Crick the dairyman). > "Oh - ay, as a lad I knowed your part o' the country very well," he > said terminatively. Anyway, enough of these ramblings. :-) If nothing else, it confirms (as do other OED entries) that Hardy's writings were used as sources for the OED, and therefore suggests that "Wessex" was probably excluded from the original dictionary on editorial grounds. Michael Day * Research Officer, UKOLN The UK Office for Library and Information * * Networking, University of Bath, Claverton Down, Bath BA2 7AY. * * Tel. +44 (0)1225 323923 Fax +44 (0)1225 826838 * ========== Date: Thu, 06 Jun 2002 09:27:05 -0400 From: Rosemarie Morgan Subject: Re: Wessex and OED Irony, Michael? There is no entry for "Wessex" in my O.E.D whereas Webster has two entries-- one of which is devoted to Hardy. Besties, Rosemarie >2. Editorial policy - it is also possible that the word "Wessex" was known >but deliberately excluded from the original OED by its editors. ==========