Re: OED?

[Mark Boyer <MBoyer -at- BANYAN -dot- COM>]

Can't help myself; have to jump in here even though I know I'll probably
receive an avalanche of hate mail.

Why would anyone in the so-called technical communication area want the OED
as a reference tool? It is not an exceptionally modern dictionary;
certainly not the dictionary one would go to find the absolute latest
senses of meaning of a word, especially a word that is discipline-specific.
It is also not American English, which is far more the reigning "dialect"
today than British English. Dictionaries are traditionally conservative
documents anyway; they record after-the-fact what is happening, or (more
precisely) what has happened often enough to now be considered acceptable
(there are few rules here, you know). From this perspective, the OED is the
most retrograde of dictionaries. I've always regarded it primarily as an
historical document and used it a lot when I was an English major (a few
lifetimes ago). Once in the real work world I rarely looked at the OED at
all. I spent about eight years as a lexicographer, working as a senior
editor of The American Heritage Dictionary. In all that time my colleagues
and I rarely consulted the OED when working on new words or newer senses
and uses of older words, though we did check it for historical meanings.
Quite frankly, the best dictionaries today are by Merriam-Webster. If you
want a big one, get the Merriam 3rd Unabridged but also always have the
latest edition of the Merriam Collegiate.
-------------
Original Text