Tom McArthur - Concise Companion to the English Language

OXFORD PAPERBACK REFERENCE

Concise Oxford Companion to
The English Language

The most authoritative and up-to-date reference books for both students and the general reader.

Abbreviations

ABC of Music

Accounting

Art and Artists

Astronomy

Ballet

Bible

Biology

Botany

Business

Card Games

Chemistry

Christian Church

Classical Literature

Computing

Dates

Earth Sciences

Ecology

Economics

English Etymology

English Literature

English Place-Names

Euphemisms

Finance

First Names

Food and Nutrition

Fowlers Modern English Usage

Geography

Irish Mythology

Kings English

Law

Literary Terms

Mathematics

Medical Dictionary

Modern Quotations

Modern Slang

Music

Nursing

Opera

Philosophy

Physics

Politics

Popes

Popular Music

Proverbs

Quotations

Sailing Terms

Saints

Science

Ships and the Sea

Sociology

Superstitions

Theatre

Twentieth-Century History

Twentieth-Century Poetry

Weather Facts

Women Writers

Word Games

World Mythology

Zoology

*forthcoming

Editor

TOM MCARTHUR

Assistant Editor

ROSHAN MCARTHUR

Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP

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Tom McArthur 1992, 1998, 2005

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The Oxford Companion to the English Language first published 1992
Abridged Edition first published 1996
The Concise Oxford Companion to the English Language first published 1998
Reissued with new covers 2005

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ISBN 0-19-280637-8 978-0-19-280637-6

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

The evolution of the alphabet

The Concise Oxford Companion to the English Language provides compact, comprehensive, up-to-date, and easily accessible information about key aspects of ENGLISH at the end of the twentieth century. Among other things, it covers: the distribution and varieties of english; its cultural, political, and educational impact worldwide; its nature, origins, and prospects; and its PRONUNCIATION, GRAMMAR, VOCABULARY, WORD-FORMATION, and USAGE. The aim has been to do this dispassionately without being bland, and in a scholarly fashion without being opaque, drawing on and distilling the unique international range of expertise that went into the original full-size Oxford Companion to the English Language (1992) and its abridged version (1996). The distinctive features of this edition include:

The highlighting of key articles both at the beginning and in the body of the book, for easy reference

Information panels throughout the text, for example giving thumbnail accounts of the PLACE-NAMES of major English-speaking countries, as a means of highlighting particular topics

Selective cross-referencing in small capitals in the body of the text (as in this introduction), as well as at the ends of entries

A chronology of English from 55 BC to AD 1997 (Appendix 1)

An extensive thematic bibliography (Appendix 2)

The Concise Companion rests on the view that, in recent years, STANDARD ENGLISH has become a global resource that does not owe its existence, or the protection of its essence, to any one nation or group. Inasmuch as a particular LANGUAGE belongs to any individual or community, English is the possession of every individual and every community that uses it, regardless of what any other individual or community may think or feel about the matter. It is therefore intended as a resource for any person anywhere who is in any way involved with English.

There has been considerable discussion over the last two decades regarding the nature and use of English, and especially what Robert W. Burchfield has called its innumerable clearly distinguishable varieties (Introduction, vol. iv, A Supplement to the Oxford English Dictionary, 1986). Scholars have discussed both its usage (local, regional, and international) and its varieties (STANDARD and NON-STANDARD), while in broader public debate many people havesometimes anxiouslywondered whether the language might be going to the dogs, and be so over-extended around the world that it might break up into mutually unintelligible forms: that is, into a range of ENGLISH LANGUAGES.

The English language complex can however be viewed in several ways. Depending on the perspective we choose, it can be a single language or an aggregate of languages. The oneness of English is obvious in its standard worldwide printed form, but the manyness becomes equally clear when we compare and contrast that standard with the guid SCOTS tongue in Lowland Scotland and Northern Ireland, or with TOK PISIN (Talk Pidgin), one of the three official language of Papua-New Guinea, alongside English and Hiri Motu. To these we can add such traditional dialects as YORKSHIRE and NEWFOUNDLAND, such recently acknowledged NEW ENGLISHes as INDIAN ENGLISH and the varieties used in NIGERIA and SINGAPORE, and the many controversial ANGLO-HYBRIDS, such as SPANGLISH in the United States (blending SPANISH and English) and TAGLISH in the PHILIPPINES (blending TAGALOG and English).