Tag archives: Oxford English Corpus
Delve into Dickens with our interactive text analyser
It’s easy to get lost in a good book. If you’re not careful, you can lose hours, or even days immersed in a fictional land; forgetting to eat, postponing sleep while you read just one more chapter… But have you ever wanted to physically climb into a book so that you can get your nose [...]
Flaunting the rules or flouting your bewilderment?
Have you ever had a moment’s pause about whether to use flaunt or flout… and then plumped for the wrong one? You may be confused, but you’re not alone! The erroneous heading above illustrates the misunderstanding that many people experience over the correct meanings of these words. However, while flaunt and flout sound fairly similar [...]
Verily, this tomfoolery must be quashed!
‘Cripes! What bally tomfoolery are those diabolical cads in the media coming up with now?’ I asked my betrothed, when confronted with a spate of recent news reports. ‘Verily, I must quash this balderdash forthwith.’ Had I perhaps been hit on the head with the King James Bible or been immersed for a year in [...]
What are ‘Mrs’ and ‘Ms’ short for?
The abbreviations Mr and Mrs are in common use, and are straightforward to pronounce when we see them written down: an approximation would be ‘mister’ and ‘missus’. But what are they abbreviations of? We seldom, if ever, write them out in full – and most of us probably never stop to think what the full versions [...]
It’s all about the nuance – synonyms and the Oxford English Corpus
There are few words that share an exact set of definitions – it is almost a guarantee that there will be some subtle differences between one word and its synonym. Sometimes these nuances are so subtle that they can be difficult to articulate fully in a definition, and only become apparent through examining usage. Oxford [...]
Participles, and how not to dangle them…
True confessions time: back in the dim and distant days when I first embarked on lexicography, I was tasked with drafting potted biographies of famous people. In trying to be succinct, I had a rather bad habit of writing in the following vein: ‘Born in Russia, his most famous opera is …’ The problem stems [...]
A quest for agreement over collective nouns
I’d like to begin with a quick mental workout. Do you know which of the following sentences, both found in the same British online newspaper in 2003, would be considered incorrect according to standard British and American usage, and why? Colchester police has also queried the proposal. Colchester police have launched a new tough approach [...]
An interactive guide to the Concise Oxford English Dictionary
The Concise Oxford Dictionary is 100 years old! To celebrate the centenary of this bestselling dictionary we have created a fascinating interactive tour charting the history of this landmark publication. Explore our interactive guide to discover the story of a dictionary that has been a trusted guide to English for millions of people, and has faithfully recorded how our [...]
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![Who's confident [confidant?] about using -ance, -ence, and](http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/wpcms/wp-content/uploads/ant-ent-60x60.jpg "Who's confident [confidant?] about using -ance, -ence, and")
