A History of the Concise Oxford Dictionary by Małgorzata Anna Kamińska, and: A History of the Chambers Dictionary by Mariusz Kamiński (review)

A History of the Concise Oxford Dictionary, by Małgorzata Anna Kamińska, delivers exactly what the title promises. Her title is the thirty-fourth volume of the Łódź Studies in Language, edited by Barbara Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk.¹ It is based on Kamińska’s PhD thesis at Opole University. A History of the Chambers Dictionary, by Mariusz Kamiński, does the same. His title is the 143rd volume of the Lexicographica: Series Maior, edited by Rufus Hjalmar Gouws, et al. It is based on Kamiński’s PhD thesis, also at Opole University.²

Kamińska’s 344-page hardcover book has an introduction; a chapter on her methodology; a section consisting of two chapters detailing the history of the Concise Oxford Dictionary (COD) and its editorial staff; a section consisting of eleven chapters that compares and contrasts each of its editions in specific categories (vocabulary selection, definitions, etymology, etc.); and a 125-page appendix of charts of (i) comparisons among the editions and (ii) sample runs from each consecutive pairing—that is, selected words from COD1 and COD2 side by side, followed by the same selection from COD2 and COD3 side by side, and so forth; and references.

Kamiński’s 344-page hardcover book has an introduction; fifteen chapters (the first chapter deals with Kamiński’s methodological analysis, three chapters detail the history and editorial staff of the Chambers Dictionary (CD), and eleven chapters compare and contrast each of its editions in specific categories—vocabulary selection, definitions, etymology, etc.); a short section called “conclusions”; a 125-page appendix of charts of (i) comparisons among the editions and (ii) sample runs from four editions in a row—for example selected words from Ch-4 through Ch-7 side by side, followed by the same selection from Ch-7 through Ch-9new side by side, and so forth; and references. (Kamiński refers to the CD editions as Ch-A through Ch-C, followed by Ch-1 through Ch-12, with two Ch-9s: Ch-9 and Ch-9new.)

By looking at each edition of their chosen titles sequentially, both Kamińska and Kamiński detail the degree and manner to which change manifests itself in the title over the century. The level of detail of the first eleven editions of COD (published between 1911 and 2004) and the sixteen editions of CD (published between 1687–2011) is thorough and straightforward. (COD12 was published in 2011 but is not included in this survey.) Their approach, as detailed in their respective methodology chapters, was to establish two samples. The first sample consists of a run of fifty consecutive headwords in six letters (in B, F, M, R, T, W for Kamińska and B, G, M, P, S, W for Kamiński) for a total of 300 words. For Kamińska, the second sample consists of full entries from six words from each letter (for example, burlesque, burly, burn¹, burn², and burn³ from B). For Kamiński, the second sample consists of full entries from seven words from each letter (for example, boy, boyhood, boyish, brace, bracing, bracelet, and bracket from B). In both cases, the remainder of the chapter details the methodological approach to analyzing the different categories they have selected to compare and contrast.

For Kamińska, the second chapter recounts the developmental history of COD, following primarily Sutcliffe (1978), Landau (2001), and McMorris (2002). The third chapter recounts biographical information for the chief editors and managing editors across all the editions, following primarily Burchfield (1979) for the earlier editors and personal correspondence from Della Thompson, Patrick Hanks, and Angus Stevenson for later editors. For Kamiński...