Lexicographers don’t decide which words are proper, they struggle with words like love. They certainly have a favorite word. Internet makes lexicographers life easier. It took almost fifty years to create the first Oxford English dictionary. Sample sentences from dictionaries can make interesting short stories. The longest word in the dictionary is the name of a lung disease “pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanokoniosis” A murder was a contributor to the first oxford English dictionary “ William Chester Minor” The dictionary included a fake word for five years “dord”

1. COMPILING A DICTIONARY
Done by: Dareen Tobeh
Supervised by: Dr. Khaleel Al Bataineh
Department of English Language and Translation

2. HISTORY, BACKGROUND AND METHOD
 No lexicographer of English begins with a blank
page.
 Lexicographers continue to build on the efforts of
earlier generations, choosing the headword list and
what details to include.

3. DICTIONARY COMPILATION ASPECTS
 Headwords selection
 Data sources
 Entries writing

4. SOURCES OF DICTIONARY’S DATA
1- Access to previous dictionaries.
2- Dictionary publisher keeps a citation file.
3- Lexicographers have access to computer corpora
(large collections of texts in electronic form).

5. HOW DOES A COMPUTER CORPUS HELP?
 Computer corpus can be rapidly and efficiently
searched.
 KWIC (Key Word in Context) can be performed
using ‘concordance’ program

6. IS LEXICOGRAPHY A SCIENCE?
 A dictionary is the work of a team, some members
specializing in particular aspects of lexical
description.
 Many dictionaries have a pronunciation specialist.
 Dictionaries nowadays are compiled on computers.

7. FUN FACTS
 Lexicographers don’t decide which words are proper, they struggle with
words like love.
 They certainly have a favorite word.
 Internet makes lexicographers life easier.
 It took almost fifty years to create the first Oxford English dictionary.
 Sample sentences from dictionaries can make interesting short stories.
 The longest word in the dictionary is the name of a lung disease
“pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanokoniosis”
 A murder was a contributor to the first oxford English dictionary “ William
Chester Minor”
 The dictionary included a fake word for five years “dord”