14 March 2008
The Oxford English Dictionary has released its quarterly update for this Spring and it’s different than past updates. To date, the updates for the new, third edition have proceeded alphabetically starting with the letter M. By that schedule, this update should have covered from quits to somewhere in the letter R. But instead, this time around the editors chose to update selected words from throughout the alphabet, plus the words that surround these selections. These selections include American, and, climate, compute, fuck, gay, genetics, and love. The words were selected because they have undergone significant change since they were last revised, with additional meanings and forms, or because they have complex semantic, syntactic, or etymological issues that need new explication.
Next quarter will pick up with quits and each subsequent quarter will alternate between an alphabetical range and an updating of select words. This will allow the editors more flexibility in updating those words that are seeing rapid change in modern English and will make the OED a more useful reference.
