Editing Oxford English Dictionary (section)

== Reception and criticism ==
British prime minister [[Stanley Baldwin]] described the ''OED'' as a "national treasure".<ref>{{Cite news |url=http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/f90b88dc-462f-11e2-b780-00144feabdc0.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221210/http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/f90b88dc-462f-11e2-b780-00144feabdc0.html |archive-date=10 December 2022 |url-access=subscription |title=Well-chosen words |website=Financial Times |date=21 December 2012 |language=en-GB |access-date=3 June 2018 |last1=Skapinker |first1=Michael |author-link1=Michael Skapinker}}</ref> Author [[Anu Garg]], founder of Wordsmith.org, has called it a "lex icon".<ref>{{cite web |url=http://wordsmith.org/awad/article-globeandmail.html |title=Globe & Mail |publisher=Wordsmith |date=11 February 2002 |access-date=3 August 2010 |archive-date=21 August 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100821094029/http://wordsmith.org/awad/article-globeandmail.html |url-status=live}}</ref> [[Tim Bray]], co-creator of Extensible Markup Language ([[XML]]), credits the ''OED'' as the developing inspiration of that [[markup language]].<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2003/04/09/SemanticMarkup |title=On Semantics and Markup |date=9 April 2003 |access-date=4 June 2014 |website=ongoing by Tim Bray |last=Bray |first=Tim |archive-date=9 July 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140709030701/http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2003/04/09/SemanticMarkup |url-status=live}}</ref>

However, despite its claims of authority,<ref name="OED_History" /> the dictionary has been criticized since the 1960s because of its scope, its claims to authority, its British-centredness and relative neglect of World Englishes,<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2013/08/13/ubc_prof_wants_to_bring_canadian_english_out_of_the_boondocks.html |title=UBC prof lobbies Oxford English dictionary to be less British |last=Luk |first=Vivian |agency=[[Canadian Press]] |newspaper=[[Toronto Star]] |date=13 August 2013 |access-date=9 February 2016 |archive-date=7 February 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160207151400/http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2013/08/13/ubc_prof_wants_to_bring_canadian_english_out_of_the_boondocks.html |url-status=live}}</ref> its implied but unacknowledged focus on literary language and, above all, its influence. The ''OED'', as a commercial product, has always had to steer a line between scholarship and marketing. In his review of the 1982 supplement,<ref>{{Cite journal |title=Review of RW Burchfield A Supplement to the OED Volume 3: O–Scz |last=Harris |first=Roy |date=1982 |journal=TLS |volume=3 |pages=935–936}}</ref> University of Oxford linguist [[Roy Harris (linguist)|Roy Harris]] writes that criticizing the ''OED'' is extremely difficult because "one is dealing not just with a dictionary but with a national institution", one that "has become, like the English monarchy, virtually immune from criticism in principle". He further notes that neologisms from respected "literary" authors such as [[Samuel Beckett]] and [[Virginia Woolf]] are included, whereas usage of words in newspapers or other less "respectable" sources hold less sway, even though they may be commonly used. He writes that the ''OED''{{'}}s "[b]lack-and-white lexicography is also black-and-white in that it takes upon itself to pronounce authoritatively on the rights and wrongs of usage", faulting the dictionary's [[prescriptive grammar|prescriptive]] rather than [[descriptive grammar|descriptive]] usage.

To Harris, this prescriptive classification of certain usages as "erroneous" and the complete omission of various forms and usages cumulatively represent the "social bias[es]" of the (presumably well-educated and wealthy) compilers. However, the ''Guide to the Third Edition of the OED'' has stated that "''Oxford English Dictionary'' is not an arbiter of proper usage, despite its widespread reputation to the contrary" and that the dictionary "is intended to be descriptive, not prescriptive".<ref>{{cite web |title=Guide to the Third Edition of the OED |url=http://public.oed.com/the-oed-today/guide-to-the-third-edition-of-the-oed/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150906013834/http://public.oed.com/the-oed-today/guide-to-the-third-edition-of-the-oed/ |archive-date=6 September 2015 |access-date=30 August 2014 |publisher=Oxford University Press |quote=The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' is not an arbiter of proper usage, despite its widespread reputation to the contrary. The Dictionary is intended to be descriptive, not prescriptive. In other words, its content should be viewed as an objective reflection of English language usage, not a subjective collection of usage 'dos' and 'don'ts.}}</ref> The identification of "erroneous and catachrestic" usages is being removed from third edition entries, sometimes in favour of usage notes describing the attitudes to language which have previously led to these classifications.<ref name="Brewer2005">{{cite journal |last1=Brewer |first1=Charlotte |author-link1=Charlotte Brewer |title=Authority and Personality in the Oxford English Dictionary |journal=Transactions of the Philological Society |date=December 2005 |volume=103 |issue=3 |pages=298–299 |doi=10.1111/j.1467-968X.2005.00154.x}}</ref> Another avenue of criticism is the dictionary's non-inclusion of [[etymology|etymologies]] for words of [[AAVE]] or African language origin such as ''[[wikt:jazz|jazz]]'', ''[[wikt:dig#Etymology 2|dig]]'' or ''[[wikt:badmouth|badmouth]]'' (the latter two are possibly of [[Wolof language|Wolof]] and [[Mandinka language|Mandinka]] languages, respectively).<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Rickford |first1=John |last2=Rickford |first2=Russell |author-link2=Russell J. Rickford |year=2000 |title=Spoken Soul: The Story of Black English |place=New York |publisher=John Wiley & Sons |isbn=0-471-39957-4 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/spokensoulstoryo00john}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Smitherman |first=Geneva |author-link=Geneva Smitherman |year=1977 |title=Talkin and Testifyin: The Language of Black America |place=Boston |publisher=Houghton Mifflin}}<!-- No, there's neither a "g" nor an apostrophe for the words in the main title --></ref> As of 2022, OUP is preparing a specialized ''Oxford Dictionary of African American English'' in collaboration with [[Harvard University]]'s [[Hutchins Center for African and African American Research]], with literary critic [[Henry Louis Gates Jr.]] being the project's editor-in-chief.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://public.oed.com/oxford-dictionary-of-african-american-english/ |title=The Oxford Dictionary of African American English |author=<!--Not stated--> |date=<!--Not stated--> |website=Oxford English Dictionary |publisher= |access-date=13 August 2022 |quote= |archive-date=13 August 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220813110139/https://public.oed.com/oxford-dictionary-of-african-american-english/}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.themarysue.com/henry-louis-gates-jr-spearheading-official-aave-dictionary-with-oxford-dictionary/ |title=Henry Louis Gates Jr. Spearheading Official AAVE Dictionary With Oxford Dictionary |last=Shotwell |first=Alyssa |date=28 July 2022 |website=The Mary Sue |publisher=Gamurs Group |quote= |access-date=13 August 2022 |archive-date=13 August 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220813110139/https://www.themarysue.com/henry-louis-gates-jr-spearheading-official-aave-dictionary-with-oxford-dictionary/ |url-status=live}}</ref>

Harris also faults the editors' "donnish conservatism" and their adherence to prudish [[Victorian morals]], citing as an example the non-inclusion of "various centuries-old '[[four-letter words]]{{'"}} until 1972. However, no English dictionary included such [[profanity]], for fear of possible prosecution under British obscenity laws, until after the conclusion of the [[R v Penguin Books Ltd.|''Lady Chatterley's Lover'' obscenity trial]] in 1960. The ''[[Penguin English Dictionary]]'' of 1965 was the first dictionary that included the word ''[[fuck]]''.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.oed.com/dictionary/fuck_v?tab=etymology |title=fuck, v. |orig-date=Original date March 2008 |date=September 2024 |access-date=14 October 2024 |website=Oxford English Dictionary Online |url-access=subscription |archive-date=3 May 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150503013537/http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/75197 |url-status=live}}</ref> [[Joseph Wright (linguist)|Joseph Wright]]'s ''English Dialect Dictionary'' had included ''[[shit]]'' in 1905.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://archive.org/details/englishdialectdi05wrig |title=The English dialect dictionary, being the complete vocabulary of all dialect words still in use, or known to have been in use during the last two hundred years; |first=Joseph |last=Wright |date=1 February 1898 |publisher=London [etc.] : H. Frowde; New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons |via=the Internet Archive}}</ref>

The ''OED''{{'}}s claims of authority have also been questioned by linguists such as Pius ten Hacken, who notes that the dictionary actively strives toward definitiveness and authority but can only achieve those goals in a limited sense, given the difficulties of defining the scope of what it includes.<ref>{{Cite journal |url=http://www.euralex.org/elx_proceedings/Euralex2012/pp834-845%20ten%20Hacken.pdf |title=In what sense is the OED the definitive record of the English language? |last=ten Hacken |first=Pius |date=2012 |journal=Proceedings of the 15th EURALEX International Congress |access-date=28 July 2014 |pages=834–845 |archive-date=11 August 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140811102246/http://www.euralex.org/elx_proceedings/Euralex2012/pp834-845%20ten%20Hacken.pdf |url-status=live}}</ref>

Founding editor James Murray was also reluctant to include scientific terms, despite their documentation, unless he felt that they were widely enough used. In 1902, he declined to add the word ''[[radium]]'' to the dictionary.<ref>[[John Gross|Gross, John]], ''The Oxford Book of Parodies'', Oxford University Press, 2010, pg. 319</ref>