Forum : Using OED Evidence

The papers in this special issue are united by three main themes. The first is their fascination with the wealth of evidence available within the Oxford English Dictionary (OED): evidence about the history of words, about the creativity and influence of authors and works, and also about wider cultural history and the history of the OED itself. Second, they explore the complexities involved in using and interpreting that evidence. Finally, they ask whether these complexities are misleading to unwary users of the OED. Should we expect a work of scholarship to reveal its own limitations?