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This is almost certainly true. In accounts of James Murray and the original NED/OED project, it's clear that he relied on an international network of amateur reader/contributors (including the madman so wonderfully described in *The Madman and the Professor*). Consider what these contributors are likely to have had access to -- not, surely, obscure pamphlets and rare books found only in a few libraries in the world, but "big name authors," or at least those available in nineteenth century editions. By the way, would anyone like to join me in encouraging Anne to write the book on Milton's genius, *Killing the Chicken*? Hannibal On Mon, Feb 16, 2009 at 10:41 AM, Peter C. Herman <[log in to unmask]>wrote: > >> >> Ian Lancashire's work on early modern lexicography has also done much to >> challenge the view that Shakespeare was continually coining new words. If >> Shakespeare were as neoteric as the OED would have us believe, he would not >> have been understood by the groundlings. The OED does seem to have a bias >> in allocating first instances of words and senses to big name authors. >> > > I wonder if that might be in part because the original lexicographers had > to rely on memory and paper rather than databases, thus making it likelier > that they would refer to "big name authors" rather than an obscure pamphlet > from 1522 or 1564? I mean, we have tools at our disposal that, obviously, > they did not, making it a great deal easier to trace linguistic origins. > > pch > > > John Leonard >> > -- Hannibal Hamlin Associate Professor of English The Ohio State University Burkhardt Fellow, The Folger Shakespeare Library 201 East Capitol Street SE Washington, DC 20003 [log in to unmask] [log in to unmask]