Menswear

[Twoddle]

Jun 17, 2008 21:56:42 GMT Paul Doherty said:

Quite a few bits of it are based on misconceptions, though.

The first of which is "aluminium", which we spell and pronounce "wrong".

[Verbivore]

Jun 17, 2008 17:56:36 GMT Paul Doherty said:

Well, on that sample it's only been in dictionaries since about 2000, and is (surprisingly) omitted from the 2002 SOED.

Reader's Digest Oxford Complete Word Finder (1st edn - 1993) has an entry.

And according to M-W, first use recorded 1908.

[Pete]

Jun 17, 2008 22:10:40 GMT Twoddle said:

Jun 17, 2008 21:56:42 GMT Paul Doherty said:

Quite a few bits of it are based on misconceptions, though.

The first of which is "aluminium", which we spell and pronounce "wrong".

Interesting, Twoddle. I pronounce it a-lyoo-min-ee-um, not rong! ;D ;D

[Paul Doherty]

Jun 18, 2008 0:49:35 GMT Verbivore said:

Reader's Digest Oxford Complete Word Finder (1st edn - 1993) has an entry.

And according to M-W, first use recorded 1908.

Is the Reader's Digest thing a dictionary?

OED has a citation from 1902, but on inspection all the early ones turn out to be for men's wear (two words, with an apostrophe), so I'm a bit suspicious of M-W.

[Dave M]

Yes, Paul - I've noticed that when the OED gives a citation for a word, it will happily include those examples which were spelled differently at the time (so might, say, cite dryfft, or somesuch, under drift). I wonder how much that extends to different separations of the parts which later make up the whole word?

It may well be that people were saying "menzwair" from 1908, but that the orthography took time to settle later into menswear.

[Verbivore]

Jun 18, 2008 13:07:08 GMT Paul Doherty said:

Is the Reader's Digest thing a dictionary?

It's a combination dictionary-thesaurus.

From the imprint page:

This edition of The Reader's Digest Oxford Complete Wordfinder was commissioned by The Reader's Digest Association Limited, London.

Published by
The Reader's Digest Association Limited
Berkeley Square House
Berkeley Square
London W1X 6AB
In conjunction with
Oxford University Press
Walton Street
Oxford OX2 6DP

Original text from The Concise Oxford Dictionary, Eighth Edition [...] 1990

Additional material from The Oxford Thesaurus, First Edition (Laurence Urdang) 1991

[...]

The Oxford Companion to the English Language (Tom McArthur) 1992

OED has a citation from 1902, but on inspection all the early ones turn out to be for men's wear (two words, with an apostrophe), so I'm a bit suspicious of M-W.

Unfortunately, my M-W - like most of the dictionaries mentioned above - is rather light on etymology and other historical information - it gives just the bare definition and the first-use date (with no mention of a two-word form).

[Paul Doherty]

> Original text from The Concise Oxford Dictionary, Eighth Edition [...] 1990 <

Oo, that's helpful. We know it was in the ninth COD, but not in the sixth. Anyone got access to a seventh?

[Twoddle]

Jun 18, 2008 8:08:06 GMT Pete said:

Jun 17, 2008 22:10:40 GMT Twoddle said:

The first of which is "aluminium", which we spell and pronounce "wrong".

Interesting, Twoddle. I pronounce it a-lyoo-min-ee-um, not rong! ;D ;D

Well done!