W.H. AUDEN—MANIPULATING THE OXFORD ENGLISH DICTIONARY.

W.H. AUDEN—MANIPULATING THE OXFORD ENGLISH DICTIONARY. I have posted on how I have become a believer in usage as the test for both grammar and the meaning of words. Lorien Kite had an article in the Financial Times (November 16-17) on the current progress on updating the Oxford English Dictionary. The OED has always followed usage. (The chief editor says it has “always maintained a purely descriptive line.”) Words are marked with a dagger if they have become obsolete. W.H. Auden, described by Kite as “a mischievous presence at the fringes of the dictionary”, made a habit of using in his poems words that had been marked as obsolete by the OED and then campaigning for their contemporary usage to be recognized by the OED.