The OED virtual event series
Virtual events
The OED virtual event series presents the latest in language research from scholars, technologists, and lexicographers around the world.
Learn how OED data is fuelling new research insights, how our editors and language technologists partner with world-leading research institutions, and how you can get even more from the definitive record of the English language.
Recorded virtual events
Find all of our recorded virtual events here, the most recent listed first:
The Eneados, written by Gavin Douglas in 1513, is the first full translation of the Aeneid in either the English or Scottish literary tradition. It is notable for the difficulty and variety of its language, and it is one of the first instances where ‘Scots’ is used as a linguistic identifier.
Megan Bushnell, DPhil candidate at the University of Oxford (English Faculty), talks about her analysis comparing Douglas’ lexis and his use of certain etymologies with other Scottish poets of the time, aiming to quantify Douglas’ use of these etymologies and specify claims about the quality of his language, to determine whether his choices are unusual, and consider if Douglas’ use of ‘Scots’ as a language identifier is motivated by his linguistic practice.
Megan has created digital files of the Eneados and its source text, along with a corpus of work by Scots Makars and Chaucer. The Palice of Honour, also by Douglas, was included for comparison. She has collaborated with the OED to provide etymological tagging for these files to allow for the statistical analysis of lexical sources.If you’re interested in historical sociolinguistics, historical lexicology and lexicography, or in the complexities of applying computational methods, this talk is for you.
Hear from Dr Säily and Dr Mäkelä of the University of Helsinki about their work on the history of English neologisms as part of the Academy of Finland’s STRATAS project.
In this virtual event, they present two case studies on new words in 17th- and 18th-century letters, insights into machine learning approaches to spelling normalization, and share what the future holds for this and other projects using the OED.
Read about the team’s research findings for ‘cha’ and ‘tea’ on the OED blog.
Fiona McPherson, Senior Editor – OED New Words, presents a session on how to make full use of the OED’s resources in academic research and teaching.
In this virtual event, Fiona gives a virtual tour of the OED, showing how to unlock the potential of the historical and linguistic data in the dictionary’s entries.
Explore the OED’s resources for students and teachers on the OED site.
Katherine Martin, Head of Lexical Content Strategy at Oxford Languages, presents a session on how to make full use of the OED’s resources in academic research and teaching.
In this virtual event, Katherine gives a virtual tour of the OED, showing how to unlock the potential of the historical and linguistic data in the dictionary’s entries, and provides an overview of some of the OED teaching resources available.
Explore the OED’s resources for students and teachers on the OED site.
How can you get involved in collecting words for the OED?
In this webinar, Dr Sarah Ogilvie, Director of Global Partnerships at Oxford Dictionaries, explains how crowdsourcing is key component for the work of building dictionaries and David Martin, OED Principal Editor and Head of the New Words, tells us what happens once a word is submitted by a member of the public.
Find out how a dictionary is created, now and in the past, and learn why some words are included in the dictionary and others never make it.