Newspaper analysis

Comparing the 1912 newspaper to the newspaper article from 1999, there has been a lot of lexical and semantic change. "thereon" , this an archaic conjunctions which is not used very often in the English language today. Also, the word "gantries" has been narrowed meaning road signs today and then it meant any big boulder, this shows how words can come in and out of language in a short time period. In the 1999 text, there is a lot of monosyllabic words used, especially the conjunctions such as; " and" and "but". This reflects the target audience as it is for working class people and they need to make the language accessible for them to read it easier. Also, it could be argued that it is a cheaper newspaper, therefore they have to limit the words and language used.

There is a lot of grammatical differences in the two texts, the 1912 text uses more compound sentences, for example; "the real thing, after that is relatively abstract preparation, was the concrete battle with resistant matter" compared to the 1999 text which uses simple sentences "that is clearly not true." this links with the audience as the target audience of the 1912 text is middle class Englishmen compared to the second text which uses more accessible language to match the target audience which is the working class. The 1999 newspaper constantly uses the collective pronoun "we" this creates a relationship between the reader and the newspaper, making it more personal and  a friendly register. 

In the 1999 the discourse structure reflects the context in which it was written. It is in the layout of a typical modern tabloid with capitalisation and bold headings. This is to catch the audiences' attention to the newspaper, this reflects the idea that the purpose of the newspaper is to inform but also to make sales and make money. Compared to the 1912 article which was mainly written for the purpose to inform. 

Oxford Dictionary Videos

How to decide what to include in a dictionary?

• Words are added if there is enough evidence of use.
• more rare and technical terms are included in the larger dictionaries and in smaller dictionaries there are more high frequency words included
• In Dictionaries for primary school children, adult terms will be left out 
• In smaller dictionaries its how widely the word occurs and in larger dictionaries the aim is to be as comprehensive as possible

What is the origin of "posh"?

• it is from the acronym " port out starboard home"
• this refers to the fact that on sea voyages between Britain and India the comfortable cabins were on the port side of the boat going out and on the starboard side coming home. The cabins were in the shade so they were much cooler, therefore the most expensive 
• The people operating the boat would print "posh" on the tickets 
• However, there is no physical evidence, no tickets have ever been found with tis word printed on them.

Oxford Dictionary's word of the year is "selfie"

• found evidence for the use of "selfie" as far back as 2002 in Australia
• Mainly popular on social media sites 
• Extended to other media sources, such as; newspapers , magazines and television

Discovering OED appeals

• 150 years ago the public sent in material that formed the core of the dictionary
• In 1879 James Murray published a list of words he needed help with
• They have kept this tradition and collaborated with many different sources, especially in the last decade.
• They will use social media to help with interaction.