Chris:
This sounds a bit like the Historical Thesaurus of English, running (?) at
Glasgow:
"The Historical Thesaurus contains the vocabulary of English from the
earliest written records to the present, with first, and where appropriate,
last recorded dates of usage, taken from the Oxford English Dictionary.
The data are arranged semantically and chronologically. There are three main
SECTIONS: (I) The External World, (II) The Mind and (III) Society, which
consist of large semantic fields, e.g. Food, Disease, Farming, etc.. Within
the sections HEADINGS describe smaller semantic areas, e.g. Cook, Fever.
Within the headings are SUBHEADINGS defining smaller groups, e.g. roast,
fry, boil. Within subheadings the data are arranged in chronological order
of first recorded date of usage."
http://libra.englang.arts.gla.ac.uk/oethesaurus/aboutoe.html
To be honest, I've never managed to get anything useful from it, but that
may be me.
Roger:
In a truncated way, you can already use the OED as a searchable database --
use the Advanced Search function to look for terms in all entries, rather
than just looking up things via headwords.
It should, when necessary, be supplemented by LEME, DST, MED, ETC ...
I was going to go into the baroque differences between the OED1, OED2,
OED2(3), OED3, and OED4, but maybe the simplest thing is to point out that
the OED (version4+, since it's evolving) is now available online, from home
(as is the DNB and Grove), to anyone who is a member of a UK local library.
Candice:
I give up <g>.
Who is Shorter? Not presumably, from the name, the Onions revision of the
Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, or Partridge's +Origins+.
Generally re IndoEuropean, I get baffled by anything beyond the American
Heritage Dictionary of Indoeuropean Roots. Maybe Pierre or Jon can help out
here. Or Patrick, if he remembers back to when he housetrained Vile Boris
as a sabertoothed kitten.
A shorter (earlier) version of AHDIE is available here:
http://www.bartleby.com/61/IEroots.html
What is still possibly the best dictionary of historical slang, edited by
Farmer and Henley, can be downloaded from the Internet Archives. (Partridge
exapanded and reorganised it, as the basis of his own dictionary, but I
think something got lost in the process.)
Search for <farmer slang> in the Internet Archives, and you'll get links to
all the volumes.
Robin
----- Original Message -----
From: "Christopher Walker" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Saturday, September 08, 2007 12:36 PM
Subject: Re: Dust Bunnits / Etymology
> <snip>
> And I would also expect such a dictionary to be organised not as currently
> but rather along the lines of a database from which relations may be
> derived
> according to the needs of the enquirer. [CW]
>
> The OED2 - as most other modern dictionaries - are based around databases.
> [RD]
> <snip>
>
> Databases in the most general sense of that term, yes; but not 'databases
> from which relations may be derived according to the needs of the
> enquirer'.
> Because the 'needs of the enquirer', as a language user, are to link
> conceptually (say) the *fabric* of a building with *cladding*,
> *fabricate*,
> *sackcloth and ashes* and so forth.
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