[英英] Preface to the first/second edition of ODE

Preface to the first edition
The New Oxford Dictionary of English is a completely new dictionary, written on new principles. It builds on the excellence of the lexicographical traditions of scholarship and analysis of evidence as set down by the Oxford English Dictionary over a century ago, but it is also very much a new departure. The New Oxford Dictionary of English is a dictionary of current English and it is informed by currently available evidence and current thinking about language and cognition. It is an inventory of the words and meanings of present-day English, both those in actual use and those found in the literature of the past. The compilers have gone to the heart of the traditional practices of dictionary making and reappraised the principles on which lexicography is based. In particular, the focus has been on a different approach to an understanding of ‘meaning’ and how this relates to the structure, organization, and selection of material for the dictionary.
   Linguists, cognitive scientists, and others have been developing new techniques for analysing usage and meaning, and the New Oxford Dictionary of English has taken full advantage of these developments. Foremost among them is an emphasis on identifying what is ‘central and typical', as distinct from the time-honoured search for ‘necessary conditions’ of meaning (i.e. a statement of the conditions that would enable someone to pick out all and only the cases of the term being defined). Past attempts to cover the meaning of all possible uses of a word have tended to lead to a blurred, unfocused result, in which the core of the meaning is obscured by many minor uses. In the New Oxford Dictionary of English, meanings are linked to central norms of usage as observed in the language. The result is fewer meanings, with sharper, crisper definitions.
   The style of definition adopted for the New Oxford Dictionary of English aims in part to account for the dynamism, imaginativeness, and flexibility of ordinary usage. The New Oxford Dictionary of English records and explains all normal meanings and uses of all well-attested words, but also illustrates transferred, figurative, and derivative meanings, in so far as these are conventional within the language.
   The layout and organization of each entry in the dictionary reflect this new approach to meaning. Each entry has at least one core meaning, to which a number of subsenses, logically connected to it, may be attached. The text design is open and accessible, making it easy to find the core meanings and so to navigate the entry as a whole.
   At the heart of the dictionary lies the evidence. This evidence forms the basis for everything which we, as lexicographers, are able to say about the language and the words within it. In particular, the large body of texts collected together on line as the British National Corpus gives, with its 100 million words, a selection of real, modern, and everyday language, equivalent to an ordinary person's reading over ten years or more. Using computational tools to analyse the data in the British National Corpus and other corpora, the editors have been able to look at the behaviour of each word in detail in its natural contexts, and so to build up a picture for every word in the dictionary.
   Corpus analysis has been complemented by analysis of other types of evidence: the New Oxford Dictionary of English makes extensive use of the database of the Oxford Reading Programme, a collection of citations taken from a variety of sources from all the English-speaking countries of the world. In addition, a specially commissioned reading programme has targeted previously neglected specialist fields as diverse as computing, complementary medicine, antique collecting, and winter sports. Other research includes a detailed and comprehensive survey of plants and animals throughout the world, resulting in the inclusion of hundreds of entries not in any other one-volume dictionary.
   The general approach to defining in the New Oxford Dictionary of English has particular application for specialist vocabulary. Here, in the context of dealing with highly technical information which may be unfamiliar to the non-specialist reader, the focus on clarity of expression is of great importance. Avoidance of over-technical terminology and an emphasis on explaining and describing as well as defining are balanced by the need to maintain a high level of technical information and accuracy. In many cases, additional technical information is presented separately in an easily recognizable alternative format.
   The New Oxford Dictionary of English views the language from the perspective that English is a world language. A network of consultants throughout the English-speaking world has enabled us to ensure excellent coverage of world English, from Canada and the US to the Caribbean, India, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand. We have benefited from the opportunities provided for communication by the Internet; lively discussions by email across the oceans have formed an everyday part of the dictionary-making process.    Many people have been involved in the preparation of this dictionary, and thanks are due to them all. Those not listed on the separate credits page who deserve special mention include: Valerie Grundy, for her contribution as managing editor during the early stages of the project; Nigel Clifford, for research in special subjects; Fred McDonald, for work on word histories; Sue Atkins, Bob Allen, and Rosamund Moon, for their contributions during the early development of the project; Judith Scott, for assistance with foreign pronunciations; and David Munro, for assistance in updating place-name entries.

Preface to the second edition
The first edition of the groundbreaking New Oxford Dictionary of English was published in 1998. For this second edition, now called simply the Oxford Dictionary of English, the text has been completely revised, a major part of that revision being the addition of over 3,000 new words, senses, and phrases to ensure that the dictionary continues to be the most accurate and up-to-date description of the language available. The source for this new material has been the Oxford English Corpus, a database which provides an extensive picture of current English as an international language. In compiling this new edition we have been able to draw on a new 100 million word corpus incorporating real English of the 21st century and made up of a balanced selection of texts from all subject fields, and have continued to monitor the language via the database of the Oxford Reading Programme, which now consists of around 77 million words. These databases have provided much of the evidence for around sixty new usage notes, covering points of grammar, spelling, usage, and pronunciation. We have also undertaken or commissioned work in adding new vocabulary in specialist subject areas such as genetics, health, medicine, and business, and in varieties of English from around the world.
   The second edition also includes a new section of appendices providing useful factual information on subjects such as countries of the world and weights and measures, a discussion of English in electronic communication, and a guide to good English.
   Apart from the contributors listed on the separate credits page, the editors would like to thank Michael Proffitt and his team for help with drafting new words, Glynnis Chantrell and Adam Kilgarriff for their work in developing the database, Edmund Weiner, Joanna Tulloch, and Anthony Grant for work on etymologies, and Bill Trumble for advice on scientific entries.