Vulgar and Popular in Johnson, Webster and the OED

By November 17, 2016,
Page 1209-1214
Author Kate Wild
Title Vulgar and Popular in Johnson, Webster and the OED
Abstract The use of restrictive labels is one of the most subjective features of modern lexicography, and several studies have shown that dictionaries do not always agree in their application of, for example, colloquial and informal. Labels are also a problematic feature of pre-20th century dictionaries, which did not provide lists or explanations of the labels they used. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the development of two labels-vulgar and popular-in Johnson's (1755) A Dictionary of the English Language, Webster's (1828) An American Dictionary of the English Language, and the first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary (1884-1933)-in order to consider how their meanings and connotations have changed, and what their use can tell us about the relative prescriptivism of the three dictionaries.
Session 6. Historical and Scholarly Lexicography and Etymology
Keywords
BibTex
@InProceedings{ELX08-120,
author = {Kate Wild},
title = {Vulgar and Popular in Johnson, Webster and the OED},
pages = {1209-1214},
booktitle = {Proceedings of the 13th EURALEX International Congress},
year = {2008},
month = {jul},
date = {15-19},
address = {Barcelona, Spain},
editor = {Elisenda Bernal, Janet DeCesaris},
publisher = {Institut Universitari de Linguistica Aplicada, Universitat Pompeu Fabra},
isbn = {978-84-96742-67-3},
}
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