The Historical Reading Programme

The Historical Reading Programme continues to be one of the most important research programmes contributing to the OED. Our highly specialized readers look at texts, mostly pre-1800, from the point of view of the Dictionary; that is, they read the material against the Dictionary, looking primarily for antedatings, or uses predating OED's first quotations, but also postdatings, or later uses, as well as variant spellings, senses or words not covered by the Dictionary entry, or other material which casts light on the sense or use of a word.

Readers have concentrated chiefly on periods or types of language which we feel to have been under-represented in earlier editions of the Dictionary, such as eighteenth century 'private' material - letters, diaries, and travel journals, especially by women - and texts in varieties of English like Welsh, Manx, and Indian English. Some of the specialist subject areas covered by the programme which may not be familiar to modern readers include locks (both the security devices and the canal navigation structures), whaling, mangel-wurzels, and the natural history of the tea-tree.

Aside from such exotics as puppyship (1764 - currently not in the OED) and snugshipness (1778, Fanny Burney, not in), very revealing insights about society, as well as the language of particular individuals, have been unearthed. Often antedatings turn up in very unexpected places. Who could have expected to find an earlier example of estate-agent (1826, previously 1880 in OED) in the 1826 Gardener's Magazine (perhaps alpine from the same source was less of a surprise). One of my own favourites is guide-dog, in Buckland's 1875 Logbook of a Fisherman and Zoologist, an 'improvement' of 57 years on the rather predictable occurrence in 1932 Proceedings from the World Conference on Work for the Blind. Perhaps a book-fair (1820, previously 1863) was a likely event to have been encountered by Hodgskin on his Travels in the North of Germany. But antedatings for patron saint (from 1717 to 1703) in Martin's Description of the Western Islands of Scotland, and French Revolution in Thomas Paine, (only by one year, to 1790) are no less valuable for being in keeping with the subject matter.

Some antedatings are dramatic; for example, butter-cloth (1540, in the modernized text of the Lisle letters - previously 1885 in OED), primority (a rare word, cited only once in the OED, from 1727, but now 1602) and thali, an Indian metal platter, formerly first cited from 1969 and now antedated to 1844, in Sleeman's Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official.

It is often very revealing to analyse the vocabulary of well-known writers by seeing what antedatings they yield. For example, Elizabeth Gaskell gives us our earliest examples of quill-pen and read, as in 'to read law', and Thackeray's letters contained antedatings for QC, refugeedom (1854, from 1967), cuppa, enfant terrible, to cramp one's style, postage stamp, and Christmas pudding (among many others). The twelve-volume edition of Byron's Letters and Journals proved a positive treasure-trove for us. A very close reading revealed many pearls, of which I might single out in-law: 'The In-laws are still alive - perhaps' (1820, OED's 1894), birth certificate, marriage certificate, chancery ward, work of art, musical ear, to blow one's brains out, and scampi (1819; OED's first is 1928!). Ginger wine, toffee, and toffee-houses all made an impression on De Quincey, and Boswell's enjoyment of gateaux on his Grand Tour was of particular interest to us (1764, previously 1845 in OED). Queen Victoria's Highland Journal yielded antedatings for shooting-lodge, clotted cream, wedding party, throwing the caber, and golf-links.

We have so much new material coming in monthly from the Historical Reading Programme that we could go on forever listing fascinating individual items. Suffice to say, from the New World to political science, from Auld Reekie (the sobriquet for Edinburgh) to Nirvana, and from air-plant to orca, all of human life is there!

Sarah Hutchinson is Senior Assistant Editor, OED, and manager of the OED's Historical Reading Programme.