Does anyone here know who has the final say on entries in the OED? Specifically, would yadda-yadda-yadda have gotten in on the say-so of an 'eager young assistant lexicographer?'

I assume the editor has final approval, but maybe other folks at Oxford Press can bring political power to bear.

Jesse Sheidlower writes:

The final say is with John Simpson, the Chief Editor. But really, any editor with moderate training would be able to make the call. Usually these editors are with the New Words Group or the North American Editorial Unit, because they're the ones doing the vast bulk of new-entry defining.

I'm not sure what you're [sic!]... actual question is; I am the one who drafted the entry for yadda-yadda-yadda, and I was never an "eager young assistant lexicographer" at OED. (It still hasn't appeared.) So it's possible that _an_ entry might have gotten in on the say-so of an EYAL, but _this_ one did not.

Hope this helps.


editor's note: as with bling-bling and others, the news services got hold of the info that entries for some new words were being worked; and as Jessie says, they have yet to appear online. (they're currently publishing in the Ns.)

p.s. - in addition to a refresher on possessive pronouns, Jesse needs to be let in on use of the *leading asterisk for emPHAsis.

Thanks, tsuwm. Exactly what I was looking for. Now what's Jesse's official title?

Principal Editor of the North American Editorial Unit

Great! Thanks, again, tsuwm.

...*leading asterisk for emPHAsis(emphasis mine)

Again, I *stand alone... in a cruel, dark world.

>>p.s. - in addition to a refresher on possessive pronouns, Jesse...

Which is kinda surprising since he is an editor, no?

>he is an editor

busy man... dashing off an email he'd never expect to see print... yeah, surprising!

I've been reading, off again, on again, a good book by John Willinsky, Empire of Words: The Regin of the OED. It's a study of how words made it into the OED. An example I remember from the first OED's editor's biography, (Caught in the Web of Words: James Murray and the Oxford English Dictionary by his grandaughter K M Elizabeth Murray), Murray had made a decision to exclude many of the newer medical and scientific words being coined at the time as part of the OED's policy. He called them "crack-jaw" words. That's how appendicitis didn't make it into volume A. In 1902, Edward VII's coronation was postponed when he had an operation to remove his appendix, but the OED had to wait until its supplement was printed to include this word.

Fit to crack the jaws; difficult to pronounce. Also transf. [OED2]

Not to be confused with jaw-crackers, i.e., a kind of hard candy in the USA.

jaw-crackers

which I think we would more commonly call jaw-breakers.

with jaw-crackers, i.e., a kind of hard candy in the USA

more commonly jaw-breakers here on east coast. (and there is also Willy Wonka brand of 'ever lasting gob stoppers' which are the same sort of thing.

Actually, they're called jaw-breakers here on the Wrong Coast, too. I was just misremembering my youth.

Listening to Radio 4 (a filthy habit; I must break it. I'll have a fag and think about it!) the French Academie has just approved a bunch of franglais words. Problem is, they are all from the 1950s and have largely fallen into disuse. I can only imagine that it's a way of appearing to support change without actually having to do so!

The French Academy has a website which I always thought was far too adventurous ...

http://www.academie-francaise.fr/

A while back on my blog, there were a bunch of entries on Quebecois and European French approved blogging terms.

Reading the term fag reminds me of how my father, a Yank, always referred to cigarettes as fags. Must've been due to his time in London during the Blitz. I used to shudder to think one of my friends might hear him and misinterpret.

here on the Wrong Coast Oh, that explains it, then... heh heh heh