Metaglossia: The Translation World

La huitième version de l'Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary débarque sur Mac OS X. Il est en vente en ligne.

LEXICOGRAPHERS at the Oxford English Dictionary said that Australia's Macquarie Dictionary was merely catching up by expanding the meaning of misogyny.

The move by Macquarie to expand the meaning of misogyny to include "entrenched prejudice against women", following Julia Gillard's description of Tony Abbott as a misogynist, has caused some indignation this week, with Liberal frontbencher Chrisopher Pyne saying that it undermined the Macquarie "in its entirety".

Alison Flood: The OED is inviting the public to help with its etymological research and find the earliest appearances of certain words...

If you look up august in the Oxford English Dictionary, there's a picture of the Oxford English Dictionary itself. This is the world's gold standard for word origins and usage. So, you might think that you don't have much to contribute their corpus of knowledge, or that they'd ever need your help.

But you'd be wrong.

Today, the OED launched a new site they call "Appeals," which seeks crowdsourced evidence of early references to today's words. For example, 'disco,' is a hard one to pin down.

Was a disco a dress before it was a nightclub? That's the surprising implication of the evidence OED researchers have uncovered while revising the entry for disco n. The earliest quotations our editors have found for the word, which is shortened from discotheque, mean 'a type of short sleeveless dress' (such as one might wear to a discotheque) and date from July 1964...

It isn't until the September 1964 issue of Playboy that we see disco meaning 'a nightclub' (though references to disco dancing are found as early as August)

What the OED editors hope ou'll do is pull out your early 60s magazines (you have some, right?) and go looking for references to disco that precede the July 1964 references to the short sleeveless dress.

There is some interesting context to consider here. The editors are trying to bridge the gap between the time when subcultural printed media exploded in the post-war west and when all that printed media was regularly digitized. It's those materials, the stuff produced by cheap means or only circulated in certain regions or among certain groups, that are hardest for researchers to get their hands on. But they are also the prized possessions of certain types of collectors and weirdos (among whom I would include myself on certain topics).

About

You are currently on Oxford Dictionaries Online, which is a free site offering a comprehensive current English dictionary, grammar guidance, puzzles and games, and a language blog; as well as up-to-date bilingual dictionaries in French, German, Italian, and Spanish.

We also have a premium site, Oxford Dictionaries Pro, which features smart-linked dictionaries and thesauruses, audio pronunciations, example sentences, advanced search functionality, and specialist language resources for writers and editors.

Subscribe to Oxford Dictionaries Pro

Read on to discover more about this innovative current English language resource …

Oxford Dictionaries Pro

'Oxford has established the template upon which future online dictionaries will be compared… Highly recommended for all libraries, writers and word lovers.’
Booklist

Dictionary

A–Z dictionary wordwheel for easy browsing
Advanced search to explore the dictionary by meaning, people and places, subject, region, usage, and word class
Audio pronunciations in both British English and US English
1.9 million extra example sentences showing words as they are really used in today’s English – all smart-linked and fully searchable
Tooltips with hover-over quick definitions for almost any word on the page
Thesaurus

Find synonyms for the specific sense of a word in the dictionary
Link to dictionary definitions from any word in the thesaurus
Quick search thesaurus

“Lolz,” “photobombing” and “mwahahaha” have recently been added to Oxford Dictionaries Online, prompting a discussion of our modern taste for digital jargon.

Yes, it does seem inevitable. When a cul­ture inte­grates some­thing new — a new tech­nology, for example, or an art form or belief system — new vocab­u­lary enters the lan­guage, giving us the vocab­u­lary we need to talk about it. There are many ways of han­dling this — some­times a lan­guage will borrow words from another lan­guage, but often we draw on the resources of our own lan­guage. Since the United States has been at the fore­front of devel­oping com­puter, Internet, cell phone and dig­ital tech­nolo­gies, many of the words for those tech­nolo­gies come from English.

Keeping in mind that these tech­nolo­gies have only been in wide­spread use for the last 20 or 30 years, the words that have entered the lan­guage are very new. But they are so per­va­sive and widely used that we don’t even think of them as new any­more! Think about mouse, virus, cookie, thumb­nail and icon: these words are now used in a com­pletely dif­ferent sense than had orig­i­nally been intended. Or think about all of the new com­pounds that we’ve cre­ated: upload, down­load, log-in, home­page, World Wide Web, web­site, flash­drive, smart­phone, and so on. Con­sider acronyms such as GPS, OMG, LOL, PC, DVD, CD, URL and USB; blends such as mal­ware (from mali­cious soft­ware) and blog (weblog); clip­pings such as app (short for appli­ca­tion) and net (for Internet); and the use of trade­names and prod­ucts such as Google, Skype, iPod, and iPhone.

Because, lo and behold, words like tweeps (pl. n.: a person’s followers on the social networking site Twitter), lolz (pl. n.: an expression of fun, laughter, or amusement; used especially online) and photobomb (n.: art of spoiling a photograph by suddenly appearing in the camera’s view as the picture is taken) are now officially part of the English language.

I think this pretty much proves that the power of social and online media cannot be ignored or overstated. You know it's legit when it’s in the frikking Oxford Dictionary! Totes Amazeballs with awesomesauce! (A few more words that I predict, and hope, will be officially incorporated soon.)

Here are some more:

inbox: v.: send a private message or an email to someone (typically another member of a social networking site or Internet message board).

lifecasting: n.: the practice of broadcasting a continuous live flow of video material on the Internet which documents one’s day-to-day activities.

micro pig: n.: a pig of a very small, docile, hairless variety, sometimes kept as a pet.

Today Oxford University Press announces the latest quarterly update to Oxford Dictionaries Online, its free online dictionary of current English. If vocabulary is your guilty pleasure, join us in a group hug to celebrate this diverse selection of new words. Genius!
Let’s set the scene. Your OH has decided it’s date night, and although he isn’t exactly ripped he has great emotional intelligence and made an effort with his new soul patch, so as a treat you decided to get vajazzled. Think that sounds ridic, or even douchey? Research from the Oxford Dictionaries team shows that these terms have made their way into common usage, hence their inclusion in the quarterly update of new words and meanings. Other additions inspired by contemporary culture include micropig, hosepipe ban, and e-cigarette.
The world of technology remains a major influence on the English language, with innovative advances reflected in new entries including NFC (near field communications), 3D printing, and e-learning. Social media also continues to shape language evolution: tweeps, video chat, lifecasting, and hat tip are among the latest words to make their Oxford dictionary debut, whilst acronyms regularly used online (from lolz to UI and UX) have also been recognized.
Head of Online Dictionaries Glynnis Keir provided the following takeaway: “The rich variety of new words from all manner of sources and levels of formality – popular culture, science, technology, politics, etc. – is striking in this update. I hope you enjoy our choices for inclusion: all carefully researched from evidence of the part these words, phrases, and acronyms currently play in our language. Oxford Dictionaries Online is an innovative free dictionary and language reference service and, with its regular updates, we aim to add more and more value to user experience.”

Following a successful trial in May, access to Dictionnaires des XVIe et XVIIe siècles has now been secured and available via OxLIP+. It is a database of ten historical French dictionaries of the s...

The Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, a world best-seller reference book is now available as a Windows Phone app. Its features a full A-Z dictionary, real voice audio (not text to speech), and My View to customize your screen.

The Oxford Dictionary is adding a slew of new
words to the English language, many of which
have been used in everyday language for a while.

WASHINGTON - A slew of new words is being added to the Oxford Dictionary, many of which have been used in everyday language for a while.

Many of the new words are abbreviations of slang words. Totes, obvs and whatevs are now words, short for totally, obviously and whatever, respectively.

The acronyns OMG and LOL were added to the dictionary in 2011.

Some words that many may have thought were already officially in the dictionary finally made the cut. Phrases like eye-rolling, muffin top and mahalo, a Hawaiian word, are now listed.

Check the Oxford Dictionary's blog for the definitions to all the new words. Some are listed below:

whatevs
abandonware
enabler
onesie
alpha geek
eye-rolling
panko
aptonym
geodata
po-po
aquaponics
geoinformation
purple state
autostereoscopic
green technology
totes
race walking
bandage dress
guyliner
ransomware
boomburb
illiterati
Robin Hood tax
CMS
infomania
scudetto
dater
K-pop
Tiger mother
death slide

If you needed more proof that recent years have seen food culture creep into public consciousness like never before, then just check out Mental Floss and Houston Press' lists of new words recently added to Oxford Dictionaries Online.

GISuser provides developer news, articles, jobs, updates concerning GIS, LBS, GPS, map mashups, and geospatial technologies, Oxford Advanced Leaner’s Dictionary 8th Edition Available as BlackBerry, iOS, Android and Windows Phone App...

About 16,000 words have succumbed to pressures of the Internet age and lost their hyphens in a new edition of the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary. Bumble-bee is now bumblebee, ice-cream is ice cream and pot-belly is pot belly.

ozdic.com - Oxford Collocation Dictionary Online for Advanced English Learners...

Oxford Dictionaries Online is our free dictionary and language reference site. The site is updated quarterly with some or all of the following: new words and senses, special features on language change, revised encyclopedic entries, and improved functionality.

Visit this page to find out about the latest changes to the site. You can also keep up to date with all the latest news and developments by signing up for the Oxford Dictionaries newsletter, following us on Twitter, or reading our blog.

Free Bilingual Dictionaries Now Added to Oxford Dictionaries - on PR.com...

Oxford Dictionaries have announced the addition of free bilingual dictionaries to their online dictionary site. Using the Oxford Dictionaries website, you can now translate English words into French, German, Italian, and Spanish using the free translation resource.

Oxford, United Kingdom, July 15, 2012 --(PR.com)-- Oxford Dictionaries have added free bilingual dictionaries to its existing English language dictionary. Users can now translate thousands of dictionary entries into French, German, Italian, and Spanish languages. For many English dictionary definitions, users now have the option to translate into French; translate into German; translate into Italian, or translate into Spanish. For more information, visit http://oxforddictionaries.com or call +44(0) 1865 556767.

“The addition of free bilingual dictionaries to Oxford Dictionaries Online is yet another example of Oxford University Press’s commitment to providing quality language resources,” said Head of Marketing Daniel Stewart. “Everyone from the language student to the holiday-maker has turned to a bilingual dictionary at some point, and by offering free bilingual dictionaries online we hope to make high-quality resources for language translation and language learning that little bit more accessible.”

Après avoir lancé la 8e édition de l’Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary en format application pour Android, le développeur Paragon Software Group et Oxford University Press, se sont à nouveau associés pour adapter le dictionnaire d’anglais bien...

Free online World and American English dictionary with puzzles & games, tips & guidance about better writing, spelling, grammar and other resources for children and schools by Oxford Dictionaries Online...

The inclusion of the term "bogan" in the Oxford English Dictionary has been welcomed in Australia and New Zealand but prompted complaints about its definition of specimens as "unsophisticated" and of "low social status".

Start growing your mullet and dust off the flanno - ‘‘bogan’’ has been added to the latest edition of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED).

The Oxford Dictionary has revised its definition of the word bogan but Kiwi bogans are unlikely to agree.

Bogan was included in a list of new word entries Oxford Dictionary issued this month.

The word has long been part of the New Zealand and Australian vocabulary and recognised as slang for someone who is working class, listens to heavy metal music, wears jeans and black t-shirts, and could often be spotted with a beer in hand, while enjoying a barbeque with mates.

That's how PhD graduate and bogan researcher Dave Snell defines it, but the Oxford Dictionary's definition isn't as broad.

The dictionary described bogan as being an Australian and New Zealand informal word, meaning: "A boringly conventional or old-fashioned person," or "an uncouth or uncultured person".

"As a bogan I'm quite offended at the idea that the definition includes an uncultured person. I think it's just a different culture," said Snell.

THEY have been around for decades, wearing a mullet, black jeans and listening to heavy metal, and now the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) officially recognises bogans.