Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-tf8b9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T21:49:56.082Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

6 - Riding the Wave of Success

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 June 2019

Stefan Dollinger
Affiliation:
University of British Columbia, Vancouver
Get access

Summary

The popularity of the Dictionary of Canadianisms happened as predicted in Canada's centennial year 1967, and, for a few years following, Gage Ltd's investment in the historical dictionary produced returns. However, rather than the promised revisions of the Dictionary of Canadianisms, a cheaper abridged version was produced in 1973, which ultimately failed to garner significant uptake. Other editions were either not produced or priced with discounts not large enough. Changes in focus in the wider field of linguistics, combined with the high price of the dictionary, combined to let the dictionary fall into relative oblivion just a decade after its much-celebrated publication. Douglas Leechman, one of the key contributors to the 1967 edition, moved on in 1968 to become the perhaps most important Canadian consultant for Robert Burchfield's Supplements to the Oxford English Dictionary, so he was unavailable for revising the Dictionary of Canadianisms. The Chomskyan and Labovian schools coming to the fore, the latter with its renewed focus on spoken non-standard language, helps explain the relatively sudden lack of attraction for academic linguists in the Canadian English dictionary work.

Type
Chapter
Information
Creating Canadian English
The Professor, the Mountaineer, and a National Variety of English
, pp. 142 - 161
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2019

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×