# There can be only one: Oxford English Dictionary vs. Encyclopaedia Britannica **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 2, 2007, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-can-be-only-one-oxford-english-dictionary-vs-encyclopaedia-britannica/410251 "2007-07-02T17:42:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Baron\_Greenback](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baron_greenback/32/48_2.png) [@Baron\_Greenback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baron_Greenback)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2007, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-can-be-only-one-oxford-english-dictionary-vs-encyclopaedia-britannica/410251/21 "2007-07-03T21:53:54Z")
[QUOTE=OtakuLoki] On a more serious level, I no longer trust Brittanica. [/QUOTE] Aye, it’s never been the same since they left Edinburgh. _strokes haggis and polishes claymore_ ---
**Author:** ![Kozmik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/8dc957/32.png) [@Kozmik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kozmik)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2007, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-can-be-only-one-oxford-english-dictionary-vs-encyclopaedia-britannica/410251/22 "2007-07-08T21:12:42Z")
It’s a tough choice. If I have to choose _one_… they both came out of what I consider the golden age of academia. The Encylopaedia Britannica was commissioned at Cambridge; the Oxford English Dictionary at Oxford… I will go with the Oxford English Dictionary. A doctor commited to an asylum actually worked on the project. And I wouldn’t be surprised if many who wrote the dictionary went insane. Think about it. Before the OED, there was no definition for many of the “ordinary words” of the English language. _Someone_ had to sit down and define ‘require’, ‘around’, ‘for’, ‘decorate’, ‘judge’, ‘look’, ect. There are hundreds of definitions alone for ‘turn’. So you can go to any good library and gaze at the 20 volume dictionary and say some men went insane so that we could know the difference between ‘assent’ and ‘consent’. ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2007, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-can-be-only-one-oxford-english-dictionary-vs-encyclopaedia-britannica/410251/23 "2007-07-09T00:03:53Z")
[QUOTE=Kozmik] Before the OED, there was no definition for many of the “ordinary words” of the English language. _Someone_ had to sit down and define ‘require’, ‘around’, ‘for’, ‘decorate’, ‘judge’, ‘look’, ect. There are hundreds of definitions alone for ‘turn’. [/QUOTE] Have you actually looked at a pre-1884 dictionary to see if this was true? ---
**Author:** ![Kozmik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/8dc957/32.png) [@Kozmik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kozmik)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2007, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-can-be-only-one-oxford-english-dictionary-vs-encyclopaedia-britannica/410251/24 "2007-07-09T02:29:35Z")
[QUOTE=Walloon] Have you actually looked at a pre-1884 dictionary to see if this was true? [/QUOTE] Yes, but I have gotten this fact from Simon Winchester’s _The Meaning of Everything_. The editor in chief, James Murray, sent out an appeal for readers to submit citations from literature so that the editors could define words. [From from the appeal](http://www.oed.com/archive/appeal-1879-06/p5.html): > [@](#): > > \*Make as many quotations as convenient to you \* for ordinary words, when these are used significantly, and help by the context to explain their own meaning, or show their use. [Additional notes](http://www.oed.com/archive/appeal-1879-06/p6.html) explain this direction, which “puzzled some Readers”. This was an unprecidented academic undertaking, and people had to be reminded that this was to be a dictionary of all words. Remember before the OED, the two main dictionaries in use were Webster’s and Johnson’s. Certainly, they were revised editions after Noah Webster and Dr. Johnson but no dictionary from scratch (imagine writing a dictionary beginning from the letter “A” onward…and it took seventy years!) In short, (no pun intended) the First Edition of the OED was 12 volumes, defining 400,000 words. In comparison, Noah Webster’s last published single volume edition defined 70,000. Hence, some 300,000 words never found in any dictionary. ---
**Author:** ![APB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8e8cbc/32.png) [@APB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/APB)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2007, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-can-be-only-one-oxford-english-dictionary-vs-encyclopaedia-britannica/410251/25 "2007-07-09T14:06:22Z")
[QUOTE=Kozmik] Before the OED, there was no definition for many of the “ordinary words” of the English language. _Someone_ had to sit down and define ‘require’, ‘around’, ‘for’, ‘decorate’, ‘judge’, ‘look’, ect. [/QUOTE] Definitions for ‘require’, ‘around’, ‘for’, ‘decorate’, ‘judge’ and ‘look’ had all already been given by Johnson. In some cases, not as precisely or as exhaustively as the _OED_ would do, but his definitions for them were more than adequate for most purposes. And he routinely cited his literary sources (if only very briefly). It is literally years since I last had occasion to use the _Encylopaedia Britannica_. That is mainly because there are always better, more specialised reference works to consult for any information one might hope to find there. The _OED_, on the other hand, I consult regularly, sometimes even doing so because I actually need to. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-can-be-only-one-oxford-english-dictionary-vs-encyclopaedia-britannica/410251.md?page=1)