《牛津英語詞典》:90歲的英語詞彙權威

Today, we’re revisiting The Times’s crossword column, Wordplay, and a word — OED — that was one of the most difficult clues from the previous week’s puzzles.

今天，我們重溫時報的填字遊戲專欄“詞玩”(Wordplay)，以及一個單詞——OED——這是上週的字謎遊戲中最難的線索之一。

The Oxford English Dictionary, a.k.a. the OED, is one of the best-known references on the English language. Yet a devious clue — “It ends with ‘zyzzyva,’ in brief” — stumped many of our solvers in the May 3 puzzle. It has appeared in The Times Crossword a total of 139 times.

《牛津英語詞典》(The Oxford English Dictionary)，也就是OED，是最著名的英語參考書之一。然而，一條曲折的線索——“簡而言之，它以‘zyzzyva’結束”——在5月3日的謎題中讓我們的許多讀者感到困惑。這個詞在時報縱橫字謎中一共出現了139次。

The OED was the 1857 brainchild of the Philological Society of London, which decided that existing English language dictionaries were incomplete and deficient.

1857年，倫敦語文學會(Philological Society of London)創造了《牛津英語詞典》，該學會認爲當時現有的英語詞典不完整、有缺陷。

It was a slow and laborious process, as their attempt was to “include all English language vocabulary from the Early Middle English period (1150 AD) onward, plus some earlier words if they had continued to be used into Middle English.” The first part, or “fascicle,” was published in 1884.

這是一個緩慢而費力的過程，因爲他們希望“包括中世紀早期（公元1150年）以來的所有英語詞彙，再加上中世紀英語中使用的一些更早期的單詞。”詞典的第一部分，或“分冊”，於1884年出版。

The “complete” dictionary — entries are always being added — was published in 1928, and the OED, which is published by the Oxford University Press, just celebrated its 90th birthday.

1928年，總是在添加詞目的“完整”詞典出版了，牛津大學出版社(Oxford University Press)出版的《牛津英語詞典》剛剛迎來了90歲生日。

By the way: A zyzzyva is “A genus of tropical weevils (family Curculionidae) native to South America and typically found on or near palm trees.”

順便說一句: zyzzyva是“熱帶象鼻蟲（仙茅科）的一個屬，原產於南美洲，通常出現於棕櫚樹上或附近”。