Dictionary dust-up

Is it a felony of lexicographic fecklessness or merely a misdemeanor of misunderstood motives?

Word guardians have been up in arms over claims in a new book about the Oxford English Dictionary, which asserts that one of its former editors, Robert Burchfield, surreptitiously expunged hundreds of words with foreign origins.

These accusations come from linguist Sarah Ogilvie, herself a former editor at the dictionary, in her book "Words of the World: A Global History of the Oxford English Dictionary," being released Thursday by Cambridge University Press. Her assertions are particularly notable because Burchfield, editor of a four-volume supplement of the dictionary completed in 1986, had cultivated the reputation as someone who was far more inclusive than his predecessors.

Deleting words from the dictionary is considered verboten.

"The deletion of entries went against all OED policy before and since: Usually, once a word is added to the OED, it remains forever," she wrote.

One of his best-known accomplishments was to include vulgar slang for copulation and female genitalia. But he also frequently bragged of being far less opposed than previous editors to including foreign words. According to Ogilvie's book, he once told Newsweek, "It seemed obvious to me that the vocabulary of all English-speaking countries abroad should receive proper attention."

The book's observations were reported in the Guardian, and a first wave of reaction on Twitter showed how fascinated people are with language. But although Burchfield's reputation absorbed the brunt of the early criticism, many are now rallying to his defense, including representatives of the OED, and even Ogilvie. Why Burchfield dropped certain words remains unknown; he died in 2004.

The OED, often considered the bible of the English language, got its start in the mid-1800s. Modifications to the giant book, which require extensive research and citations, do not occur lightly. In 1933 editors compiled a supplement of new words to be added. Burchfield edited his four-volume supplement decades later.

That supplement was swallowed whole into a new 1989 edition, but the 1933 supplement was not -- and therein lies the rub. In compiling his supplement, was Burchfield stuffier about the English language than his predecessors, or not?

Ogilvie said she did not doubt Burchfield's claim that he was more broad-minded until she began editing at the OED, after his departure. She said that as she looked through past editions she noticed that words in earlier volumes were missing from Burchfield's supplement, particularly those with foreign roots.

She set out to analyze the omissions. By examining a random sample of 10 percent of the words in the four-volume Burchfield supplement and comparing those entries with those in the 1933 supplement, she concluded that Burchfield deleted 17 percent of words that she broadly categorized as borrowed from regional dialects of English or coming from another language. Among his favorite targets were American words that had crept into the dictionary, like frog-pond and seed-cake, and other foreign-sounding words like danchi (Bengali for a tropical shrub) and boviander (from British Guiana for people of mixed race who live on river banks).

Jesse Sheidlower, editor at large for the OED, said that Ogilvie's comments were being taken out of context and that Burchfield was being unfairly besmirched. He said Burchfield "did not delete anything."

That said, Sheidlower added, the 1933 entries not included in the four supplements did not vanish.

"Those words are still there, and they are being added to OED3 online."

Among the restorations so far, he said, were automobilize (American usage) and aberglaube (German, for a belief in things beyond the certain and verifiable).

In a phone interview Ogilvie took a seemingly softer stance toward Burchfield than she does in her book.