Error in the Oxford English Dictionary?

by Apr 14, 2014Books, Linguistics3 comments

Screen Shot 2014-04-11 at 23.04.38

I wrote this note to the OED folks a few days ago regarding the screenshot above. Anyone have another explanation? I’d rather not believe that the OED committed an error!

Dear Sirs:

I regret to inform you that you may have an error in your otherwise invaluable dictionary.

I believe that an incorrect citation has been placed in the entry for “miserable.” The first nominal sense contains a citation from 1994 in the Daily Telegraph. The citation faithfully replicates the italicization of the word miserables. But, in fact, I believe the italics to be an indication that the author intended his or her readers to view the word as French, despite the absence of the acute accent: misérables. I consider this a possible allusion to Les Misérables, and the fact that the French-speaking nation of Haiti is in view provides further evidence for my supposition.

I am happy to be corrected. I have never discovered an error in the OED in all my previous years.

An amateur lover (pardon the etymological redundancy) of lexicography, yours,

mlwj

Read More 

Great Quote from Timothy George

Great Quote from Timothy George

Timothy George in his Galatians commentary in the NAC: The fact that this word [Abba] is given here [in Gal 4:6], and also in Rom 8:15, in both Aramaic and Greek indicates the bilingual character of early Christian worship. Throughout the history of the church various...

Did Evangelical Snowflakes Censor the Bible?

Did Evangelical Snowflakes Censor the Bible?

Salon.com recently published an interview with sociologist Samuel L. Perry titled, “When Evangelical Snowflakes Censor the Bible: The English Standard Version Goes PC.” And I got a reply to all this: Nuh-uh! Let me elaborate that answer, however, because “nuh-uh”...

Review: Small Preaching by Jonathan Pennington

Review: Small Preaching by Jonathan Pennington

Small Preaching: 25 Little Things You Can Do Now to Become a Better Preacher, by Jonathan Pennington (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2021). Very few pp.Great little title. Punchy and short. Genuinely full of wisdom. The three things that stood out to me most: The very...

Leave a comment.

3 Comments
  1. Jeremy Patterson

    I knew there was a latent francophile in you!

  2. mlward

    So you think I’m right?

  3. Jeremy Patterson

    Yes, unless the OED lexicographers were thinking of the Spanish translation of Les Misérables, which I would rank as highly unlikely. Or unless they were emphasizing the word for which they included the example — also unlikely, given that they didn’t do that for the other examples. It is more likely, I suppose, that the Daily Telegraph editors made the original error of leaving off the accent, and so the OED editors just copied what was in the newspaper.