Answering the Call: The History of Political and Social Concepts in English (original) (raw)

1999, History of European Ideas

The "rst editor of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), James Murray, delighted to tell the story of a dream in which he had overheard his great lexicographical predecessor, Samuel Johnson, in conversation with James Boswell, his biographer: J its proponents argue that the OED's coverage is so complete, and that its lexicographical principles are so congenial to historians, that it will do duty as an English GG for all foreseeable purposes. Murray would no doubt have been pleased by these plaudits, as he would surely have been intrigued by the GG. Like the OED, the GG has been a collective and collaborative enterprise, superintended by scholars with a commanding historical research programme; each was based on &historical principles', and each relied heavily on the use of quotations as the basis for its entries. However, both were products of their times and places, and of the particular research agendas on which they were