![]() ![]() First published in 1901 as Chambers's Twentieth Century Dictionary, it changed its name with the 1988 edition to Chambers English Dictionary and with the 1993 edition to its present one, The Chambers Dictionary. Traditionally the dictionary of choice for most crossword setters has been Chambers and, as a result, I would guess that it is also the one to which most dedicated crossword solvers also turn. However, in practice, a crossword editor has to draw a line somewhere. You can see just from these few facts and figures that any printed one-volume dictionary can only be a limited selection of what is available and different editing teams make different selections. The mammoth task of producing a completely revised third edition of the OED is scheduled to take until 2037 and it is likely that it will never be published in book form at all, only online. The total of its main entries is about 300,000. Something like 4,000 new words are "approved" each year as having become an established part of English as it is spoken and written. The OED went online in 2000 and the content is updated every three months. This compares with the 290,000 or so entries in the second edition (1989) of the 20-volume Oxford English Dictionary.Īnd the OED (along with all the other dictionary publishers) has embraced the power of the computer, so that new words and phrases are given the Oxford seal of approval much more quickly than was the case in the past. In reality it is not surprising because even one of the large single volume dictionaries contains only about 170,000 words and phrases. You would be surprised how many words with perfectly obvious meanings appear in one of the leading dictionaries but not in another. We have never followed that path because, in my view, the result would be much too restrictive. There have also been a couple of emails on the theme of why can't the Guardian crosswords make life simpler by nominating one "official" dictionary and making a rule that only words from it would be allowed as solutions. Perhaps it is just Christmas casting its shadow before it, causing worry about what present to buy for that difficult member of the family. If you have any problems with the service, please email If you have any comments or queries about the crosswords, please email some reason several people this month have asked for my views on dictionaries. Congratulations to Jonathan Walters from Swansea who is September's winner. The solutions to last month's puzzle can be viewed at /crossword/solutions.
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