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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2014
Introduction
In essence, the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) is a historical dictionary that aims at documenting, by means of illustrative quotations, the semantic and grammatical evolution of the entire vocabulary of English – in its standard varieties – over a period spanning a thousand years. The purpose of this chapter is to assess the reliability and usefulness of the quotations database as a tool – to be used on its own or in manifold probings – for research on grammatical change and variation.
The first and complete electronic version of the OED corresponds to the second edition or OED2. Both OED2 and the revised and additional material published so far as part of a third edition, OED3, can be accessed at OED online, subscribed to by many universities worldwide. However, as pointed out by Brewer (2009: 211), ‘OED3 has covered the alphabet range from M to near the end of Q [sc. by spring 2008], and completion of the entire dictionary is some decades away.’ For this reason and since I am in possession of an electronic version that can be run from the hard drive of a PC (Version 1.10), this survey has been confined to OED2.
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