Introduction

Ever since its very beginnings, the Oxford English Dictionary (1884–1928) was an unprecedented achievement of historical lexicography which, thanks to diachronically ordered quotations, came to be a record of linguistic and cultural heritage of the English language. The third edition (henceforth, OED3), now in the making, seeks to update the whole dictionary text by revising its etymological component, correcting the existing entries and incorporating new words, senses and illustrative quotations (see, e.g., Gilliver 2005). One of the features of the revision has been its attention to antedating; although collecting antedatings may appear to be merely “futile pedantry” (McConchie 1997: 154), there is a clear rationale behind the lexicographers’ efforts: the need to better document their recorded histories. This paper focuses on the entry for macaroni in OED3 − a miniscule sample of the revision process − offering a closer look at its development and suggesting evidence which can enhance its lexicographic treatment. It indicates that historical lexicography in general, and OED3 in particular, can benefit greatly from the use of “unchartered data” (Aiden and Michel 2013), of which Google Books is a case in point.

Research framework

Revision of the OED

The revision of the OED, viewed as a daunting and ambitious task comparable to the original undertaking (Brewer 2007: 12), rests on the assumption that, once thoroughly revised and updated, OED3 will become a truly perfect repository of English vocabulary. However, despite having at their disposal “big data” embracing huge historical files, mega-corpora and impressive lexical databases like EEBO, OED3's lexicographers do not have access to all sources printed in English. A representative collection of texts should obviously be sufficient for describing a number of individual items, especially high-frequency words, yet claims that it will cover every use, sense and spelling variant would be merely wishful thinking. In this context, it is easy to see that changes to OED3 are only a matter of time. The dating of the headwords too may require corrections; while a great deal of antedatings have been discovered systematically in the course of the revision, many more will arguably appear in the not-so-distant future.