Teacher Discussion Forums

"The OED faces an increasingly uphill struggle in its attempts to capture World English; almost every Anglophone country has now developed a set of distinctive uses, some more divergent than others."

Roger Blench

Cambridge

Considering that, which of the main dictionary publications can truly be called "a dictionary of English"? And are there distinctions made between the terms "a dictionary of English" and "an English dictionary"?

I've just checked through the SOED for contemporary Indian uses, and it is patchy. It will give words like 'lakh' and 'crore', but is patchy on common uses of other English words such as 'bugger' or 'hotel' or 'denting'.

Stephen Jones wrote:I've just checked through the SOED for contemporary Indian uses, and it is patchy. It will give words like 'lakh' and 'crore', but is patchy on common uses of other English words such as 'bugger' or 'hotel' or 'denting'.

Hence the modifier "shorter".