Language by the Book, As That Book Evolves--牛津詞典與語文一同進化

On the following UDN webpage, you can find an NYT article with its Chinese translation.

http://mag.udn.com/mag/edu/storypage.jsp?f_ART_ID=499003

Language by the Book, As That Book Evolves

牛津詞典與語文一同進化

【聯合報／By TOM RACHMAN／任中原譯】2014/02/13

OXFORD, England — To compile a dictionary of nearly every word in the English language was an endeavor typical of Victorian times, complete with white-bearded gentlemen, utter confidence and an endearingly plodding pace. After 25 years, the first installment emerged in 1884. Its contents? “A to Ant.” But in this impatient age, the Oxford English Dictionary is touch-typing toward a third edition, with 619,000 words defined so far, online updates every three months and a gush of digital data to sort through.

My comments: "Impatient age"!

For the first time in 20 years, the long-respected dictionary has a new chief editor, Michael Proffitt, 48, who assumes the responsibility of retaining traditions while ensuring relevance in an era of Googled definitions and text talk.

Mr. Proffitt was respectful of the old ways but equally ready to reconsider the dictionary .

“My idea about dictionaries is that, in a way, their time has come,” he said. “People need filters much more than they did in the past.” He added, “As much as I adhere to the O.E.D.’s public reputation, I want proof that it is of value to people in terms of practical use.”

Mr. Proffitt advocates links in digitized literature to O.E.D. entries; he wants more use by students, whose distinction between “dictionary” and “web search” is increasingly blurred .

The O.E.D. has stood apart, partly for authoritative definitions but chiefly for its historical quotations, which trace usage through time. The first edition, proposed in 1858 with completion expected in 10 years, was finished 70 years later, in 1928. The second edition came out in 1989, at a length of 21,730 pages. Work on the third started in 1994, with hope of completion in 2005. That was off slightly — by about 32 years, according to the current guess of 2037.

But for all the admirable rigor of the O.E.D., nowadays the dictionary is probably more revered than used. Part of the problem is price. A copy of the 20-volume second edition costs $995, with a one-year digital subscription running $295 — a hard sell when so many research tools are free online.

Although the O.E.D. survived the Internet upheavals that devastated other reference works, it has yet to capitalize fully on the potential online audience. Mr. Proffitt is eager to do so, perhaps with lower prices, certainly with tweaks to the website and less stuffy definitions.

“A lot of the first principles of the O.E.D. stand firm, but how it manifests has to change, and how it reaches people has to change,” said Mr. Proffitt, who is hardly the image of the scholar of old, referring with satisfaction to having drafted the entry for “phat” (“a. Of a person, esp. a woman: sexy, attractive. b. Esp. of music: excellent, admirable; fashionable, ‘cool’ ”).

In the 19th century, the primary obstacle to composing this dictionary of “every word occurring in the literature of the language it professes to illustrate” was tracking down quotations . Today, the staff of about 70 people contends with too much information.

“We can hear everything that’s going on in the world of English for the last 500 years, and it’s deafening,” said the associate editor, Peter Gilliver, who once spent nine months revising definitions for the word “run,” currently the longest single entry in the O.E.D.

My comments: Nine months on a word! That's about two semesters.

Literary texts accounted for most quotations in the early days of the dictionary. But the current text is far more inclusive, with blog and Twitter postings, quotations from gravestones, an inscription in a high school yearbook. The objective is to find the earliest and most illustrative uses of a word, not to grant benediction to anything as “proper English.” Each time commentators rebuke the O.E.D. for admitting teenage slang or marketing jargon, they misunderstand the dictionary, which aims not to define how language should be used, only how it is.

My comments: Descriptive, not prescriptive.

“I don’t know whether those words are appropriate ,” Mr. Proffitt said. “But seeing the historical context often persuades you that what seemed like a hard-and-fast rule is not. And, similarly to the way the language changes, its uses change. The more flexible [that] people are about language use, then probably the more they thrive.”

中譯

編一本幾乎將英語單字一網打盡的詞典，是維多利亞時代典型的一項努力，參與者是白鬍子、高度自信、邁著沉重緩慢步伐的一群紳士。歷經25年努力，字典第一部分於1884年誕生。內容呢？「從Ａ到ANT（螞蟻）」。

在這個缺乏耐心的年代，牛津英語詞典（O.E.D.）正以觸控打字邁向它的第三版，目前已完成61萬9,000條目的定義，網路版則每三個月更新一次，還得爬梳潮湧般的數位資料。

這是20年來這本素受推崇的詞典首次更換總編輯，48歲的普羅菲特的責任是既須延續詞典的傳統，又得確保它能和這個以谷歌搜尋定義、以簡訊交談的時代產生連結。

普羅菲特尊重傳統，但也同時準備將字典再定位。他說：「我對詞典的想法是，在某種程度上，它的時機已到。人們比過去更需要資料的過濾器。在我盡可能堅守O.E.D.的公眾信譽時，我還希望能向人們證明詞典的實用價值。」

普羅菲特鼓吹數位化的文學與O.E.D.的條目相連結；他希望學生更多用詞典，學生對「詞典」與「網絡搜尋」的區分已日益模糊。

O.E.D.自成一家，雖與文字定義具權威性有關，主要還是因為引經據典，收錄了該字使用實例的沿革。編纂第一版之議於1858年提出，原定10年完成，卻到70年後，即1928年始竟其功。第二版1989年問世，多達2萬1730頁。第三版始於1994年，原冀望2005年完工，目前推估2037年可問世，只略差32年左右。

O.E.D.的嚴謹固然可佩，時下世人對它卻是敬重多於使用。部分問題出在價格。一套20冊的二版牛津英語詞典標價995美元，數位訂閱年費則為295美元，在網路免費研究工具甚多的這年頭，實在難銷。

雖然O.E.D.在網際網路摧毀其他參考作品的巨變中得以倖存，卻仍無法從潛在的網路觀眾獲利。普羅菲特渴望能做到這一點，或許會降價求售，但肯定會對網站進行調整，也會減少沉悶乏味的定義。

普羅菲特很難與老學究形象扯上邊，他在提到草擬「phat」此一條目的定義（1.（形容人，特指女性）性感的，有魅力的。2.（特指音樂）一流的，令人欽佩的；時尚的，「酷」。）時，得意地說：「O.E.D.許多最高原則仍將堅守，如何體現則須有所改變，如何引人入勝也須改變。」

19世紀時，編纂這本收錄「出現於英文文獻中的每個字」的字典的最大障礙，是找出引文的出處。今天，字典約70位員工最大挑戰卻是資訊過多。

副主編季里佛說：「我們可以聽到英語世界過去500年發生的每一件事，真是震耳欲聾。」季里佛曾花費九個月修訂run這個字的定義，它是目前O.E.D.中內容最長的條目。

詞典早期的引文多數來自文學作品，現今引文出處包羅萬象，有部落格、推特貼文、墓誌銘、中學畢業紀念冊留言等。詞典的目的是找出某字最早和最具說明性的用法，而非認可何者才是「適切英語」。不時有人斥責O.E.D.收錄青少年的俚語或行銷術語，他們都誤解了這本詞典，它的目的不是界定語言應如何使用，而是呈現它的原貌。

普羅菲特說：「我不知道那些字適切與否，但看過它的用法沿革便會知道，看似不能破的規則也會破。如同語言會變，語言的用法也會變。人類在語言使用上越靈活，就越可能茁壯成長。」