The Oxford English Dictionary, labelled as “the greatest humanistic project in the world,” has celebrated its 80th birthday.
At a meeting to mark the anniversary, participants praised the book, which currently lists 415,000 English words.
The first OED is credited to Dr Samuel Johnson who compiled it during the 18th century, but panelists argued that his work was actually quite sloppy by today’s standards. According to Simon Winchester, “Johnson seems to get ‘sex’ into as many definitions as possible….”
