Deismireachtaí | Citations
Citations – and their role in a modern dictionary
It has always been a major challenge for lexicographers to accurately capture and reflect current and common usage in the language or languages of their dictionaries. The use of citations from the public came to the fore in the late 19th century when James Murray, editor of the still embryonic Oxford English Dictionary, issued an appeal to the ‘English-Speaking and English-Reading Public’ to send him citational evidence for the way words were used. During the decades that followed, hundreds of thousands of ‘slips’ (short extracts from published works, each illustrating a word or phrase in context) found their way to Murray’s scriptorium in Oxford. It was this ‘database’ of evidence that formed the raw material from which the OED was constructed.
In the 21st century, with the advent of computers and their ability to process huge linguistic corpora, citations no longer take centre stage in the dictionary-making process. But they still have an important role to play, as a source of evidence for new words, phrases, and meanings entering the language. This is because people are much better than computers at spotting these changes. Unlike computers, human readers readily light on anything novel or unexpected – whether it be a new word or phrase, or an existing word used in an unfamiliar way.
Citations sought
In comparison with other major contemporary languages, the use of language corpora in Ireland is still in its early stages. As part of the long-term goal of developing the lexicographical resources in Irish, it is envisaged that a a database of citations for The New Corpus for Ireland, be created. The support of the public will be central to the fulfilment of this goal. We therefore invite the submission of citations in Irish or in English (particularly in Irish English) that would provide evidence of how either language is being used in this day and age. Citations may be gleaned from any source, both written (a book, newspaper, magazine, journal or website) or oral (ordinary conversation, radio or television programmes). The citations may be registered as either evidence of the usage of that individual language or as suggestions for translation from the other language.
It is an integral part of the role of citations to reflect natural usage of the language as well as ‘correct’ usage of the language. Therefore, it is not the case that only examples of highly fluent or rich language should be submitted. Every piece of evidence about current usage in a living language is valuable in creating an accurate profile of each word or phrase, even if some of the material may not be included in a dictionary.
