Wordhunt

Last updated

Wordhunt was a national appeal run by the Oxford English Dictionary , looking for earlier evidence of the use of 50 words and phrases in the English language. [1] New evidence found by members of the public in response to the appeal appears in the Oxford English Dictionary. [2] The appeal is a companion to the BBC2 television series Balderdash and Piffle , presented by Victoria Coren [3] and Archie Baron. [4]

Contents

Background

The dictionary has appealed to the public for word usages since James A. H. Murray's first sought contributors in 1879, and the then editor-at-large Jesse Sheidlower said in 2007 that he considers the modern Wordhunt to fall within the same tradition. [5] Then chief editor John Simpson and Archie Baron, one of the presenters, explained that viewers could search such sources as football fanzines and programmes, vinyl records, film dialogue, school newspapers, diaries and private letters that dictionary editors found difficult to access. [4] [6]

First Wordhunt

The first Wordhunt was launched in 2005 by the Oxford English Dictionary and the BBC and resulted in the OED updating the entries of 34 words and phrases, featured in the first series of Balderdash and Piffle, broadcast in early 2006. [7] These included the "99 ice-cream", "bomber jacket", the "full monty" and "ploughman's lunch". [4] [6]

The 50 words and phrases were:

Second Wordhunt

The second Wordhunt was launched in January 2007, and the results featured in a second series of Balderdash and Piffle, which was broadcast in Spring 2007.

The forty words and phrases, divided into six themes, are:

Man's Best Friend

Put Downs and Insults

Spend a Penny

Fashionistas

X Rated

One Sandwich Short

Who Were They?

Dodgy Dealings

References

  1. ↑ "BBC - Press Office - Oxford English Dictionary and the BBC launch new Wordhunt". www.bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 3 June 2022.
  2. ↑ Zimmer, Ben (August 2012). "Crowdsourcing the dictionary". BostonGlobe.com. Retrieved 3 June 2022.
  3. ↑ Gilchrist, Jim (2 January 2006). "We can butter oor ain neeps wi' bletherskites and peedie words". The Scotsman . p. 10.
  4. 1 2 3 Roberts, Laura (8 October 2005). "Search for meaning leaves the dictionary experts lost for words". The Scotsman . p. 19.
  5. ↑ Troop, Don (2007). "Calling All Wordhounds". Chronicle of Higher Education . 53 (21): A6.
  6. 1 2 Brown, Mark (3 January 2007). "OED asks for the full monty". The Guardian . p. 11.
  7. ↑ "The history of the OED Appeals". OUPblog. 8 October 2012. Retrieved 3 June 2022.


ISO 639 Icon en.svg

This article about the English language is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.