Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Happy birthday, Oxford English Dictionary

The first volume of the first edition was published on 1 February 1884 under the title A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles; Founded Mainly on the Materials Collected by The Philological Society.

So here are the Bee Gees in 1971 with “Words”:


Monitor: Home Paddock

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2 comments:

  1. AnonymousFebruary 1, 2012 at 4:37 PM

    Or here IS the Bee Gees... Have never been certain. Would like a definitive answer. Will the new OED oblige?

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  2. Stephen StratfordFebruary 1, 2012 at 5:38 PM

    There's three of them. That makes it plural. (Geddit?)

    Styles for this vary. The Auckland Star subbery was ruled by a style Nazi who insisted on "the Beatles is" which just offends the ear. Weirdly, he was a musician so you'd think he'd have been able to hear that it sounds wrong. These days I think most editors would go for "the Beatles are" and "here are the Bee Gees" because we have all relaxed a bit and learned to trust our ears. However, watch this space for David Cohen citing a contrary view from his beloved "NY Times manual of Style and Usage".

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