ljdickey@watmath.UUCP (Lee Dickey) (05/16/84)
There is rumor that within a few years
there will be an electronic version
of the Oxford English Dictionary and that
the University of Waterloo is involved with
the project.
--
Lee Dickey, University of Waterloo. (ljdickey@watmath.UUCP)
... {allegra, decvax} !watmath!ljdickeyagk@ihuxq.UUCP (Andy Kegel) (05/17/84)
This morning (5/16) on National Public Radio's Morning Edition program (or was it yesterday evening on NPR's All Things Considered?), there was a 3 minute piece on the new OED that is being prepared. I'm not sure exactly who is involved in the project, but the person interviewed was in England (that does not rule out Waterloo's involvement). There was a mention of 1988 availability (1989?). The media is to be "tape" -- I don't know what kind. Nor was it clear how they were to handle the special typesetting requirements (What is a long-e in ASCII or EBCDIC? What convention will they use for Italics and bold characters?). -andy kegel
mjk@tty3b.UUCP (Mike Kelly) (05/17/84)
The NPR story was from Oxford (not surprising) and it's the same people who've been maintaining the OED for sixty years or so that are doing the new version. They were specifically vague about the distribution media, since it isn't expected until 1988 or 1989 and they stated that they didn't know now what media would be appropriate then. It may also be available through Prestel / Videotex / Antiope etc. It's being done at the Bodlian (sp?), the main library at Oxford. Mike Kelly
perelgut@utcsrgv.UUCP (Stephen Perelgut) (05/17/84)
<>
Nothing like a rumour right from the source, eh? :-)
According to the news reports, Waterloo has landed a large
contract ($6M) to put NOED on-line. Lots of money for a
typing project.
--
Stephen Perelgut
Computer Systems Research Group University of Toronto
Usenet: {linus, ihnp4, allegra, decvax, floyd}!utcsrgv!perelgut
CSNET: perelgut@Torontocsc@watmath.UUCP (Computer Sci Club) (05/17/84)
It is quite official, Waterloo University will be working on the
project to put the OED in machine readable form. (Globe and Mail,
May 15, (13,14?)) I do not remember the details though a few are
given in the article.
William Hughesmason@utcsrgv.UUCP (Dave Mason) (05/17/84)
Amazing how much mis-information can be generated by one rumour!
Waterloo has the contract to design the software to support the dictionary.
It will include the 12 volumes of the dictionary plus the existing 3
supplements and a new supplement, and eventually all the reference material
which was used to decide usage. Someone in the US is doing the typing.
It is due to be available in 1988. I don't remember the amount, but $6million
sounds in the right ballpark. There is some long term possibility that this
may become available on laser disks (you knew there was some use for a .5 gig
ROM didn't you) for the home, but that is clearly not the short term intention.
500,000 words might be a little slow for spelling checking. The assumed
market (to be handled by Oxford) is for researchers (lawyers mentioned).
All this approximately correct recall from a CBC program.
--
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!utcsrgv!mason Dave Mason, U. Toronto CSRG
CSNET: mason@Toronto
ARPA: mason%Toronto@CSNet-Relayhal@cornell.UUCP (05/18/84)
There was an article in Datamation within the last couple of months about
the New OED project. I just skimmed it and don't remember the details,
but there was a fair amount of technical info. I also recall that IBM
supplied the computers, which was somewhat embarrassing since it would be
a bit better for national pride if ICL had won the contract. The project
apparently aims to make a machine-readable OED available to scholars as
well as just producing a new revision.
Hal Perkins UUCP: {decvax|vax135|...}!cornell!hal
Cornell Computer Science ARPA: hal@cornell BITNET: hal@crnlcsgrw@fortune.UUCP (Glenn Wichman) (05/18/84)
>> a mention of 1988 availability (1989?). The media is to be "tape" --
Tape are not media. Tape is a medium. Am I getting tedious yet?
Still no cute signoff,
-Glennrbg@cbosgd.UUCP (Richard Goldschmidt) (05/18/84)
According to an interview with the OED editor in Oxford (on Nation Public Radio - All Things Considered), the project was supposed to cost around $12M, so maybe Waterloo is only getting one part. The primary discussion in this broadcast was about it's use as a research tool in linguistic studies, language history, etc. rather than as a "commercial" database for lawyers.