Cover not available
Part of
Processes of Change: Studies in Late Modern and Present-Day English
Edited by Sandra Jansen and Lucia Siebers
[Studies in Language Variation 21] 2019
► pp. 95–114

Chapter 6
Scotland’s contribution to English vocabulary in Late Modern times

This chapter discusses some nineteenth-century Scottish authors, lexicographers, and periodicals that are frequently cited as sources in the Oxford English Dictionary, in order to assess their role in the expansion of English vocabulary that occurred throughout Late Modern times. As these citations concern the first instances of both new lexical items and of new meanings, their proportion is analyzed paying special attention to the former. Literary sources are considered on account of their relative popularity at different points in time, but the article also discusses periodicals and dictionaries, which could have a greater or lesser encyclopaedic approach to the vocabulary they collected. The study shows that the complexity of lexical accretion in Late Modern times requires the study of a broad range of materials in the cultural framework in which they were produced and received.

Keywords: Late Modern English, Scotland, Scots, Scottish English, lexicography, lexical borrowing, cultural history
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
    • 1.1Late Modern Scotland between antiquity and innovation
  • 2.The Scottish roots of the OED
  • 3.Scottish sources in the OED
    • 3.1Literary voices
    • 3.2Scottish lexicographers in the OED
    • 3.3Scottish periodicals in the OED
  • 4.Concluding remarks
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 13 August 2019
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/silv.21.06dos
References

Primary sources

OED, The Oxford English Dictionary
[URL]. Last accessed March 2019.
Jamieson, John
1808/1840 An etymological dictionary of the Scottish language, 2nd edition ed. by J. Johnstone. Edinburgh: William Tait.Google Scholar
Ure, Andrew
.21840  A dictionary of arts, manufactures, and mines. London: Longman, [URL]. Last accessed March 2019.Google Scholar

Secondary sources

Aitken, A. Jack
1995/96 James Murray, master of Scots. Review of Scottish Culture 9. 14–34.Google Scholar
Brewer, Charlotte
2018 Setting a standard: Authors and sources in the OED. In Linda Pillière, Wilfrid Andrieu, Valérie Kerfelec & Diana Lewis (eds.), Standardising English: Norms and margins in the history of the English language, 127–143. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Collin, Zacharias
1862 An essay on the Scoto-English dialect. Lund: Berlings Printing Office.
Copeman, W. S. C
1951 Andrew Ure, M.D., F.R.S. (1778–1857). Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine 44 (8). 655–662.Google Scholar
Dareau, Marace G. & Iseabail Macleod
2009 Dictionaries of Scots. In A. P. Cowie (ed.), The Oxford history of English lexicography. Volume I, 302–325. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Dossena, Marina
2005 Scotticisms in grammar and vocabulary. Edinburgh: John Donald (Birlinn).Google Scholar
2012 Late Modern English – Semantics and lexicon. In Alexander Bergs & Laurel Brinton (eds.), HSK 34.1 – English Historical Linguistics – An International Handbook, 887–900. Berlin, De Gruyter.Google Scholar
2014 ‘Dispensers of knowledge’. An initiatory investigation into nineteenth-century popular(ized) science.” Token: A Journal of English Linguistics 3. 53–72.Google Scholar
2016 ‘Terms of Art and Manufacture’: An Early Investigation into Late Modern Dictionaries of Specialised Discourse.” Textus 29(3): 127–145, special issue on Late Modern English Norms and Usage, edited by Giovanni Iamartino and Laura Wright.Google Scholar
Forthcoming. Usage Guides, Social Commentary and Views on Education in Late Modern Scotland. Brno Studies in English.
Farrar, W. V.
1973 Andrew Ure, F.R.S., and the philosophy of manufactures. Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London 27(2). 299–324. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Fyfe, James G.
1942 Scottish diaries and memoirs 1746–1843. Stirling: Eneas Mackay.Google Scholar
Hickey, Raymond
2010 Late Modern English language studies. In Raymond Hickey (ed.), Eighteenth-century English: Ideology and change, 403–413. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Holmes, Daniel T
1909 Literary tours in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland. Paisley: Alexander Gardner.Google Scholar
Kidd, Colin
1993  Subverting Scotland’s past: Scottish whig historians and the creation of an Anglo-British identity, 1689-c.1830. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Montgomerie-Fleming, James B.
1899 Desultory notes on Jamieson’s Scottish dictionary. Glasgow: William Hodge and Co.Google Scholar
Murray, James A. H.
1873 The dialect of the southern counties of Scotland. London: Asher.Google Scholar
Murray, Katharine M. E.
1977 Caught in the web of words: James Murray and the Oxford English dictionary. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Nebbia, Giorgio
2005 Andrew Ure (1778–1857). Altronovecento 10, [URL]. Last accessed March 2018.Google Scholar
Paterson, James
1855 Origin of the Scots and the Scottish language. Edinburgh: John Menzies.Google Scholar
Rennie, Susan
2012 Jamieson’s dictionary of Scots: The story of the first historical dictionary of the Scots language. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar