Reviews
Publication of the Historical Thesaurus was accompanied by widespread media attention and enthusiastic notices and interviews in print, online and on radio and television. Reviews and editorials appeared in the Times, the New York Times, the Daily Telegraph, the Guardian, the Sunday Times, the Sun, the Evening Standard, the Daily Record, the Daily Mail, the New Yorker, Harper’s Magazine, BBC News, and the Literary Review. In addition to being named a Book of the Year in the Guardian and the Times Literary Supplement, the Thesaurus received the Saltire Society’s Research Book of the Year Award in 2009.
Some quotes from these include:
The Times: ‘It should be used with caution, not for elegant variation, but for the history and archaeology of English. But as English is the richest language, so this mighty publication is its treasury.’
The Sunday Times: ‘Now this is what you call a proper reference tool, as well as an awesome tribute to the English language [...] this magnificent, 4,000-page treasure chest, a permanent monument to the anarchic energy, good humour and generosity of our language.’
The New York Times: ‘Whereas a dictionary makes it possible to follow the history of a word, a historical thesaurus — the Historical Thesaurus claims to be the world’s first, in any language — makes it possible to follow the history of a meaning. It’s like watching an actor try on new costumes and shed old ones, or like cruising down a river that in one stretch narrows to a rapids and at another broadens to a marsh. With a little effort, a historical thesaurus can even serve as a vehicle for a kind of linguistic time travel. “For any given period in the past,” the editors write, “the user should be able to ascertain the exact state of the vocabulary (i.e., the ‘lexical system’) which existed at that time.” That’s a dizzying power to have at your fingertips, and I bet that historians, sociologists, philosophers and literary critics will soon wonder how they got by for so long without it.’
Academic reviews of the Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary since its publication in 2009 include:
Adamska-Sałaciak, Arleta. 2010. “C. Kay, J. Roberts, M. Samuels and I. Wotherspoon (eds). Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary”. International Journal of Lexicography, 23 (2), 227-233.
Brewer, Charlotte. 2010. “Christian Kay, Jane Roberts, Michael Samuels, and Irené Wotherspoon (eds). Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary”. Review of English Studies 61(252), 801-805. doi:10.1093/res/hgq094
Busse, Beatrix. 2012. “A celebration of words and ideas: The stylistic potential of the Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary”. Language and Literature 21:1, 84-92. doi: 10.1177/0963947011432047
Coleman, Julie. “Christian Kay, Jane Roberts, Michael Samuels & Irene Wotherspoon (eds.), Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary. With additional material from A Thesaurus of Old English..” Word Structure, 6, 2010, 201-213.
Diller, H-J. “Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, with additional material from A Thesaurus of Old English.” Anglia, 34, 2010, 319-323.
Görlach, Manfred. “Christian Kay, Jane Roberts, Michael Samuels, and Irené Wotherspoon (eds). Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary”. English Language and Linguistics 15:1, 193-197. doi: 10. 1017/ S1360674310000365
Green, Eugene. “Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, with additional material from A Thesaurus of Old English.” Dictionaries 31, 2010, 123-129.
Ilson, Robert. 2011. Review Article “On the Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary”. International Journal of Lexicography, 24 (2), 241-260. doi:10.1093/ijl/ecq032
Mugglestone, Lynda C. 2010. “Much intoxication but little restraint. Reconstructing history through the Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary”. Language and History, 53:2, 138-143. doi:10.1179/ 175975310X12798962415341
Tissari, Heli. 2012. “C. Kay et al., Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary” . Neuphilologische Mitteilungen, CXIII: 1, 122-126.
