Episode 63 (The Oxford English Dictionary)
In a Manner of Speaking
00:00
The Scope of the Oxford English Dictionary
The OED is such a huge book, partly because each word includes its etymology and wonderful citations of earliest known appearances in print. And thanks to you and your team, we have the pronunciation both phonemically and in increasing numbers of audio clips. So that can all be sort of correctly matched up so that when somebody looks something up in the OED and they see that there's apparently eight different ways to say it in US English, they'll click the little speakers and speaker icons and the correct version will play. Am I explaining the scope of the OED correctly here? Yes, absolutely. The most wonderful place to be working.
Play episode from 07:08
Transcript
Before moving into lexicography, Dr. Sangster headed the BBC Pronunciation Unit and completed a D.Phil. in sociophonetics. Catherine’s linguistic research interests include accents and dialects, Germanic languages, the phonology of conlangs, language and gender/sexuality, and Latin and its Anglicization.
