Say What????

[PoliticalChic]

Whether reading or writing, or expressing oneself verbally, each require the correct....and judicious....use of words.
Using the correct ones often tells others of our education and, frequently, our level of intelligence.

So.....I propose a national day of celebration on May 12th, celebration the beginning of the compilation known as the Oxford English Dictionary.
The OED is the definitive record of the English language, featuring 600000 words, 3 million quotations, and over 1000 years of English.



May 12th, 1860 The Philological Society of London agreed on rules for a project that would lead to the publication of the Oxford English Dictionary. It would come to fruition 68 years and three weeks from this starting date.
Perhaps the holiday should be November 5th, 1857, when three members of the Philological Society, Herbert Coleridge, Frederick Furniva and the Dean of Westminster, Richard Trench agreed to form a committee to study which words have been left out of the English Dictionaries.



On Wednesday, June 6, 1928 the Oxford English Dictionary was completed. In The Meaning of Everything, Simon Winchester discusses the English of the time as follows:

“The English establishment of the day might be rightly derided at this remove as having been class-ridden and imperialist, bombastic and blimpish, racist and insouciant- but it was marked undeniably also by a sweeping erudition and confidence, and it was peopled by men and women who felt they were able to know all, to understand much, and in consequence to radiate the wisdom of deep learning.”

Really interesting book!

 

[Sunni Man]

Thanks for making me aware of the book.
I'm going to order a copy today. ...

 

[Bleipriester]

You can use friendly terms, you still mean your opponent is running a child sex business.

 

[rightwinger]

I read it

A lot of words but not much of a plot

 

[PoliticalChic]

Thanks for making me aware of the book.
I'm going to order a copy today. ...

That post was only for intellectuals!

I see it got to the right place!

 

[PoliticalChic]

When Winchester wrote this about the English people of that time, few of us recognized that he was indicting what has become of our modern government educational system.


Consider whether you would apply this to the results of government schooling today:

".... it was marked undeniably also by a sweeping erudition and confidence, and it was peopled by men and women who felt they were able to know all, to understand much, and in consequence to radiate the wisdom of deep learning.”


As noted here several times, ask the Liberal posters who stumble out of government schooling to provide several of the book that have informed their geopolitical worldviews......
....and note the blank stares.

 

[PoliticalChic]

The word we all use, "sincere," actually means 'without wax.'

Roman elites, those who contracted for marble statues of themselves, made certain that the sculptor couldn't make mistakes and cover them up with wax.....so the Latin for 'without wax,' was included.

[There has been a temptation to see the first element as Latin sine "without." But there is no etymological justification for the common story that the word means "without wax" (*sin cerae), which is dismissed out of hand by OED and others, ...]

sincere | Etymology of sincere by etymonline

"pure, unmixed, unadulterated;" also "free from pretense or falsehood," from French… See origin and meaning of sincere.

www.etymonline.com

I think I read it in Thurber's book.


In any case, when I came to this country, the only English phrase I knew was 'tater tots.'

I loved this book:

Wish I had kept it....I see it going for $850 on Amazon.....

 

[Sunni Man]

$850 is for the hardback book.

You can get it in paperback for $28 ....

 

[PoliticalChic]

$850 is for the hardback book.

You can get it in paperback for $28 ....

I could re-live the old days!

 

[PoliticalChic]

On January 7, 1858, the Society formally began work on the OED.

On February 1, 1884, the first portion of the Oxford English Dictionary, considered the most comprehensive and accurate dictionary of the English language, was published. The first volume of what would become the Oxford English Dictionary arrived in 1888, covering A and B, but it redefined "slow" with its release schedule. C didn't arrive until 1893, D in 1894, and in fact the whole, entire dictionary wasn't completely in print until 1928.

Yes, it took forty years to publish the definitive dictionary, and was ten volumes.

You'd think Oxford would rest on their laurels, but twenty years later, the work was out of date. Robert Burchfield was hired to take over and update the OED, a task that was supposed to take seven years. Instead it took 29 years, with volumes published in 1972, 1976, 1982, and 1986, with true official second edition issued in 1989.

 

[PoliticalChic]

If you think about it, the vast amount of effort put in on the Oxford English Dictionary represents the dashed educational hopes for our civilization.

If you don’t see those hopes as dashed…..check the data:

"Percentage of persons 14 years old and over who were illiterate 1969....1 percent."
National Assessment of Adult Literacy (NAAL) - 120 Years of Literacy

"...1 %....."



" Twenty-six percent of 12th graders are below the basic reading level. This means these kids do not have the skills necessary to perform simple and everyday literacy activities. Also, in comparison to other countries, the U.S. is ranked 14th in literacy and 25th in math.

“No matter how you measure it, there is definitely a very sizable percentage of kids who are leaving high school and are really not ready for any level of post-secondary education.”
Self Improvement If High School Seniors Can t Read Their Diplomas Should They Be Allowed to Graduate The Self Improvement Blog



"According to the Us Department of Education, National Institute of Literacy, in 2013, 19 percent of high school graduates could not read at all."
Savage, "Stop The Coming Civil War," p.207

Now…ask yourself, which party owns and operates government schools.