Editing Oxford English Dictionary (section)

=== Second edition ===
{{Infobox book|
| name              = Oxford English Dictionary|
| image             = Oxford English Dictionary 2nd.jpg|
| caption           = Second Edition|
| editor            = [[John Simpson (lexicographer)|John Simpson]] and [[Edmund Weiner]]|
| illustrator       = |
| cover_artist      = |
| country           = United Kingdom|
| language          = English|
| series            = |
| subject           = [[List of English dictionaries|Dictionary]]|
| publisher         = [[Oxford University Press]]|
| pub_date          = 30 March 1989|
| media_type        = |
| pages             = 21,730<ref name=facts2004 />|
| isbn              = 978-0-19-861186-8
| dewey             = 423 19
| congress          = PE1625 .O87 1989
| oclc              = 17648714
}}

By the time the new supplement was completed, it was clear that the full text of the dictionary would need to be computerized. Achieving this would require retyping it once, but thereafter it would always be accessible for computer searching—as well as for whatever new editions of the dictionary might be desired, starting with an integration of the supplementary volumes and the main text. Preparation for this process began in 1983, and editorial work started the following year under the administrative direction of Timothy J. Benbow, with [[John Simpson (lexicographer)|John A. Simpson]] and [[Edmund Weiner|Edmund S. C. Weiner]] as co-editors.<ref name=":5">{{Cite web |url=http://www.oed.com/archive/oed2-preface/hist-new-oed.html |title=Preface to the Second Edition: The history of the Oxford English Dictionary: The New Oxford English Dictionary project |date=1989 |access-date=16 May 2008 |website=Oxford English Dictionary Online |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080516195137/http://www.oed.com/archive/oed2-preface/hist-new-oed.html |archive-date=16 May 2008}}</ref> In 2016, Simpson published his memoir chronicling his years at the OED: ''The Word Detective: Searching for the Meaning of It All at the Oxford English Dictionary – A Memoir'' (New York: Basic Books).

[[File:OED-LEXX-Bungler.jpg|right|framed|Editing an entry of the ''NOED'' using [[LEXX (text editor)|LEXX]]]]
[[File:OED markup corrections.jpg|left|thumb|A printout of the SGML markup used in the computerization of the ''OED'', showing pencil annotations used to mark corrections]]
Thus began the ''New Oxford English Dictionary (NOED)'' project. In the United States, more than 120 typists of the International Computaprint Corporation (now [[Reed Tech]]) started keying in over 350,000,000 characters, their work checked by 55 proof-readers in England.<ref name=":5" /> Retyping the text alone was not sufficient; all the information represented by the complex [[typography]] of the original dictionary had to be retained, which was done by [[markup (computer programming)|marking up]] the content in [[SGML]].<ref name=":5" /> A specialized [[Search engine (computing)|search engine]] and display software were also needed to access it. Under a 1985 agreement, some of this software work was done at the [[University of Waterloo]], Canada, at the ''Centre for the New Oxford English Dictionary'', led by [[Frank Tompa]] and [[Gaston Gonnet]]; this search technology went on to become the basis for the [[Open Text Corporation]].<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://db.uwaterloo.ca/OED/ |title=UW Centre for the New OED and Text Research |date=10 November 2005 |access-date=4 June 2014 |last=Tompa |first=Frank |author-link=Frank Tompa |archive-date=12 September 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140912011713/http://db.uwaterloo.ca/OED/}}</ref> Computer hardware, database and other software, development managers, and programmers for the project were donated by the British subsidiary of [[IBM]]; the colour syntax-directed editor for the project, [[LEXX (text editor)|LEXX]],<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://domino.research.ibm.com/tchjr/journalindex.nsf/0/bc33186c36e05a9e85256bfa0067f698?OpenDocument |title=LEXX |access-date=3 July 2004 |archive-date=12 February 2006 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060212114851/http://domino.research.ibm.com/tchjr/journalindex.nsf/0/bc33186c36e05a9e85256bfa0067f698?OpenDocument}}{{subscription required}}</ref> was written by [[Mike Cowlishaw]] of IBM.<ref>{{Cite journal |title=LEXX – A Programmable Structured Editor |last=Cowlishaw |first=Mike F. |author-link=Mike Cowlishaw |date=1987 |journal=IBM Journal of Research and Development |doi=10.1147/rd.311.0073 |volume=31 |issue=1 |pages=73–80 |s2cid=207600673 |url=https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/f337/6dc837706144926d864c4faa40d522a3c074.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200228090750/https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/f337/6dc837706144926d864c4faa40d522a3c074.pdf |archive-date=28 February 2020}}</ref> The [[University of Waterloo]], in Canada, volunteered to design the database. [[A. Walton Litz]], an English professor at [[Princeton University]] who served on the Oxford University Press advisory council, was quoted in [[Time (magazine)|''Time'']] as saying "I've never been associated with a project, I've never even heard of a project, that was so incredibly complicated and that met every deadline."<ref name="Gray1989-3-27">{{Cite magazine |url=https://content.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,957301,00.html |title=A Scholarly Everest Gets Bigger |last=Gray |first=Paul |date=27 March 1989 |magazine=Time |access-date=7 June 2014 |archive-date=3 May 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150503012629/http://content.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,957301,00.html |url-status=live}}</ref>

By 1989, the ''NOED'' project had achieved its primary goals, and the editors, working online, had successfully combined the original text, Burchfield's supplement, and a small amount of newer material, into a single unified dictionary. The word "new" was again dropped from the name, and the second edition of the ''OED'', or the ''OED2'', was published. The first edition [[retronym]]ically became the ''OED1''.

The ''Oxford English Dictionary 2'' was printed in 20 volumes.<ref name=Dickson /> Up to a very late stage, all the volumes of the first edition were started on letter boundaries. For the second edition, there was no attempt to start them on letter boundaries, and they were made roughly equal in size. The 20 volumes started with ''A'', ''B.B.C.'', ''Cham'', ''Creel'', ''Dvandva'', ''Follow'', ''Hat'', ''Interval'', ''Look'', ''Moul'', ''Ow'', ''Poise'', ''Quemadero'', ''Rob'', ''Ser'', ''Soot'', ''Su'', ''Thru'', ''Unemancipated'', and ''Wave''.

The content of the ''OED2'' is mostly just a reorganization of the earlier corpus, but the retypesetting provided an opportunity for two long-needed format changes. The [[headword]] of each entry was no longer capitalized, allowing the user to readily see those words that actually require a capital letter.<ref name=":1">{{Cite web |url=http://www.oed.com/archive/oed2-preface/intro-features.html |title=Preface to the Second Edition: Introduction: Special features of the Second Edition |date=1989 |access-date=16 May 2008 |website=Oxford English Dictionary Online |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080516195244/http://www.oed.com/archive/oed2-preface/intro-features.html |archive-date=16 May 2008}}</ref> Murray had devised his own notation for pronunciation, there being no standard available at the time, whereas the ''OED2'' adopted the modern [[International Phonetic Alphabet]].<ref name=":1" /><ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.oed.com/archive/oed2-preface/intro-phonetic.html |title=Preface to the Second Edition: Introduction: The translation of the phonetic system |date=1989 |access-date=16 May 2008 |website=Oxford English Dictionary Online |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080516195327/http://www.oed.com/archive/oed2-preface/intro-phonetic.html |archive-date=16 May 2008}}</ref> Unlike the earlier edition, all foreign alphabets except Greek were [[Transliteration|transliterated]].<ref name=":1" />

Following page 832 of Volume XX ''Wave-Zyxt'' there's a 143-page separately paginated bibliography, a conflation of the OED 1st edition's published with the 1933 Supplement and that in Volume IV of the Supplement published in 1986.<ref>{{Cite book |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/OXD1989ENEN/20-%20Oxford%20English%20Dictionary%20%281989%29/page/n843/mode/2up |title=The Oxford English Dictionary Volume XX Wave-—Zyx |publisher=[[Clarendon Press]] |year=1989 |isbn=0-19-861232-X |editor-last=Simpson |editor-first=J. A. |editor-link=John Simpson (lexicographer) |publication-place=Oxford |page=[3 of Bibliography's pagination] |chapter=Note to the Bibliography |access-date=7 April 2024 |editor-last2=Weiner |editor-first2=E.S.C. |editor-link2=Edmund Weiner |via=[[Internet Archive]]}}</ref>

The British quiz show ''[[Countdown (game show)|Countdown]]'' awarded the leather-bound complete version to the [[List of Countdown champions|champions of each series]] between its inception in 1982 and Series 63 in 2010.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.ukgameshows.com/ukgs/Countdown |title=Countdown |access-date=2 June 2014 |website=UKGameshows |archive-date=16 January 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210116000720/http://www.ukgameshows.com/ukgs/Countdown |url-status=live}}</ref> The prize was axed after Series 83, completed in June 2021, due to being considered out of date.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://wiki.apterous.org/Series_83 |title=Series 83 |access-date=25 June 2021 |website=The Countdown Wiki |archive-date=24 June 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210624111026/https://wiki.apterous.org/Series_83 |url-status=live}}</ref>

When the print version of the second edition was published in 1989, the response was enthusiastic. Author [[Anthony Burgess]] declared it "the greatest publishing event of the century", as quoted by the ''[[Los Angeles Times]]''.<ref>{{cite news |last=Fisher |first=Dan |title=20-Volume English set costs $2,500; New Oxford Dictionary – Improving on the ultimate |newspaper=Los Angeles Times |date=25 March 1989 |quote=Here's novelist Anthony Burgess calling it 'the greatest publishing event of the century'. It is to be marked by a half-day seminar and lunch at that bluest of blue-blood London hostelries, Claridge's. The guest list of 250 dignitaries is a literary 'Who's Who'.}}</ref> ''Time'' dubbed the book "a scholarly [[Everest]]",<ref name=Gray1989-3-27 /> and [[Richard Boston]], writing for ''[[The Guardian]]'', called it "one of the [[wonders of the world]]".<ref>{{cite news |last=Boston |first=Richard |title=The new, 20-volume Oxford English Dictionary: Oxford's A to Z – The origin |newspaper=The Guardian |location=London |date=24 March 1989 |author-link=Richard Boston |quote=The ''Encyclopaedia Britannica'' and the ''Dictionary of National Biography'' are indeed yet mighty, but not quite what they used to be, whereas the OED has gone from strength to strength and is one of the wonders of the world.}}</ref>