Over on OUPblog, the blog for Oxford University Press (where I also hang my hat), today's launching of the sixth edition of the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary is being celebrated cruciverbally. The creators of Jonesin’ Crosswords, whose puzzles appear in alternative weeklies around the country, have contributed a crossword in which the long entries were selected from among the 2,500 words and phrases new to the sixth edition. Check it out. (You can read more about the Shorter in my OUPblog column here and here.)
And if you're looking for something a little more out there, lexically speaking, check out the crossword that Francis Heaney put together as a special puzzle for contestants at this year's American Crossword Puzzle Tournament (PDF, Across Lite). That puzzle features "recently coined words or archaic words waiting to be repopularized," championed by OUP's Chief Consulting Editor for American Dictionaries, Erin McKean (as part of a forthcoming Discovery Channel documentary, "The Joy of Lex"). Maybe a few of those words will be appearing in the seventh edition of the Shorter!
Posted by Benjamin Zimmer at September 20, 2007 11:41 AM