Blog 7 Xinyi Wang

“The Oxford English Dictionary” talks about the origin and editing process of probably one of the most time-consuming dictionaries. The speaker has a strong stance, “letter makes words, words make languages; words change all the time, languages change all the time.” It well illustrates the connections between words and languages, and put emphasis on time’s strong influence on language. Some members in a philological society first came up with the idea of writing a dictionary, and trying to determine every word’s origins and changes of meanings. It includes 15 volumes and takes almost a hundred years to finish. James Murray was the chief editor. Even J. R. R. Tolkien was employed by the OED as assistance. The process of editing is hard, editors used quotation slips to write down useful paragraphs, the amount is up to 1.8 million. Nowadays, the situation is different. New words or meanings popular in songs, magazines or TVs all have a chance to appear in dictionary. In the end, the speaker restated her stance, “languages change all the time”.

In my opinion, this video’s purpose and stance are quite obvious to readers. The story flows well, as a viewer, I can easily get her point and catch up main idea. The topic is also thought-provoking, how people made a dictionary that covers each word’s origin at a hundred years ago, and how the situation changed in modern society. The recording of voice is good, however in some places the speed is a little fast. Also, the background music is a little loud. The use of image needs some improvements, some pictures occur more than one time.

(Source: The Oxford English Dictionary by Anne Fields http://digitalstory.osu.edu/stories/academic/)