Is Chevrolet a word?
Dictionaries are always a matter of general interest, but one development has been escaping popular attention, just when it has become very interesting. They have acquired a newly realized freedom to become much bigger, in fact of unlimited size, if they are to be used only on-line. Most obviously, this should allow many more of the obscure or little-used words of our language to be included in any collection. But much more importantly, it means that if they want to, dictionaries can now record many hitherto rejected items from a whole class, that contains millions of words. These are the “proper nouns” – those that are usually spelt with a capital first letter, including people’s names, place names, trade names, even Latin biological names. Many recent dictionaries have included some, but only a small selection from what is out there.
For some time I have been trying to persuade the editors of the Oxford Online dictionary to add a few more, and have scored two successes so far: Spitfire and Hurricane. One other suggestion was Hiawatha. They didn’t reply to that one, perhaps because it was already on its way, prompted by someone else. There are now in fact two entries with that headword, duly numbered 1 and 2, although each of them has every appearance of having been written in ignorance of the other one’s existence
.
I should have begun by saying that my qualifications in such matters are slight, but not entirely nonexistent. That’s the first thing you should ask about any self-appointed commentator on lexicography. I am really just an 85-year-old retired forester, but I did once spend ten years as the editor of a prestigious scientific information abstracts journal, which taught me a lot about words. It was exactly at the time when that whole business was being computerized, in the 1980s. And most importantly, the journal was not an insular one, but used English as the world’s lingua franca, which it is, and which is how Oxford should see it, even more than it does now.
My recent dealings with Oxford Online were first prompted by the word “thrang”, well known to me from my childhood dialect. I looked to see if it was recognized by Oxford. It wasn’t in the Online version, but I discovered a mention of it in the OED, under the headword throng, which quotes it from Burns’s Twa Dogs. This got the attention of the Online editors, who say they will include it. They also found a quotation from Wordsworth, which probably clinched the decision.
When
you dip into dictionaries, one thing leads to another – they are
notorious for it. I found myself looking to see if these authors’ names
are in. They are, along with those of a large number of other famous
people. But I am sure you could find many more, from the specialized
reference works.
This led to the question, had these new proper noun entries been considered by categories, such as “famous people”, possibly with subdivisions for “writers”, etc., as you might expect from the tidy minds of Oxford? It seems likely that they had been, and also that “famous names” are seen as a very special type of proper noun. But what other categories might be looked for?
My first choice for investigation may seem a strange one: Swiss cantons! But it does have some advantages as a test case. It is an easily manageable number, and you know exactly where you are with them. There are 26, including six that count as three pairs of what used to be called “half cantons”. One thing is for sure: the editors of Oxford Online had never made any attempt to deal with this little group systematically. Only seven are actually mentioned as cantons, and one of these only in the article about the Müller-Thurgau grape! That, incidentally, provides my first example of the dictionary’s common use of a “word” (in this case Thurgau) which it doesn’t itself include as such. Of the 26 relevant place names, six are in with no mention that they are the names of cantons as well as of cities, mountains, lakes, etc. These are Zurich, Lucerne, Basle (cross-referenced at Basel), Neuchâtel, Geneva and Jura. There has been a suggestion that both kinds of omission are deliberate, the missing canton names being seldom referred to in English speech or writing. However, any such claim is weakened by Vaud being in, while Valais is out, and still further by the inclusion of Zug – which may have got in as being “the Swiss tax haven”, although that is not mentioned. Or maybe it is there just because it is the smallest one; the editors, or some of them, having an obsession with things that are the highest, deepest, largest, smallest, longest or widest of their subset. This would imply, however, in spite of all the evidence to the contrary, that somebody did look at a list of the cantons. Vaud and its capital Lausanne are treated differently from all the rest, in that they have two entries, the one on Vaud being cross-referenced to Lausanne, but not vice versa.
I should add that all 50 of the states of the USA are in – as well as all 50 of their capitals, each of them with its own headword, although only about ten of these towns are widely known outside North America.
I followed this with some less intensive studies, which produced rather similar results. I won’t go into the details here, but one of them at least is worth mentioning. In the category of “ocean currents” I was surprised to find one specimen of shoddy lexicography quite unworthy of Oxford. There are two entries, for North Equatorial Current and South Equatorial Current, the former in the Atlantic and the latter in the Pacific. In reality, as quick and easy googling confirms, there are three sets of three currents, North, South and Counter, all of them important, in each of the three oceans concerned, the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific
Place names, taken as a major category that includes things like ocean currents, are now being given the same sort of treatment as the names of famous people, with a large number of new entries. Selecting them, however, is obviously a major problem. It is very easy to make more suggestions for consideration. My own would include Ailsa Craig, Arthur’s Seat and Corryvreckan! Or perhaps more importantly, a few of the Scottish and Irish sea lochs or loughs (Linnhe, Fyne, Foyle, Swilly) to add to the selection of freshwater land-locked ones.
This led to the question, had these new proper noun entries been considered by categories, such as “famous people”, possibly with subdivisions for “writers”, etc., as you might expect from the tidy minds of Oxford? It seems likely that they had been, and also that “famous names” are seen as a very special type of proper noun. But what other categories might be looked for?
My first choice for investigation may seem a strange one: Swiss cantons! But it does have some advantages as a test case. It is an easily manageable number, and you know exactly where you are with them. There are 26, including six that count as three pairs of what used to be called “half cantons”. One thing is for sure: the editors of Oxford Online had never made any attempt to deal with this little group systematically. Only seven are actually mentioned as cantons, and one of these only in the article about the Müller-Thurgau grape! That, incidentally, provides my first example of the dictionary’s common use of a “word” (in this case Thurgau) which it doesn’t itself include as such. Of the 26 relevant place names, six are in with no mention that they are the names of cantons as well as of cities, mountains, lakes, etc. These are Zurich, Lucerne, Basle (cross-referenced at Basel), Neuchâtel, Geneva and Jura. There has been a suggestion that both kinds of omission are deliberate, the missing canton names being seldom referred to in English speech or writing. However, any such claim is weakened by Vaud being in, while Valais is out, and still further by the inclusion of Zug – which may have got in as being “the Swiss tax haven”, although that is not mentioned. Or maybe it is there just because it is the smallest one; the editors, or some of them, having an obsession with things that are the highest, deepest, largest, smallest, longest or widest of their subset. This would imply, however, in spite of all the evidence to the contrary, that somebody did look at a list of the cantons. Vaud and its capital Lausanne are treated differently from all the rest, in that they have two entries, the one on Vaud being cross-referenced to Lausanne, but not vice versa.
I should add that all 50 of the states of the USA are in – as well as all 50 of their capitals, each of them with its own headword, although only about ten of these towns are widely known outside North America.
I followed this with some less intensive studies, which produced rather similar results. I won’t go into the details here, but one of them at least is worth mentioning. In the category of “ocean currents” I was surprised to find one specimen of shoddy lexicography quite unworthy of Oxford. There are two entries, for North Equatorial Current and South Equatorial Current, the former in the Atlantic and the latter in the Pacific. In reality, as quick and easy googling confirms, there are three sets of three currents, North, South and Counter, all of them important, in each of the three oceans concerned, the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific
Place names, taken as a major category that includes things like ocean currents, are now being given the same sort of treatment as the names of famous people, with a large number of new entries. Selecting them, however, is obviously a major problem. It is very easy to make more suggestions for consideration. My own would include Ailsa Craig, Arthur’s Seat and Corryvreckan! Or perhaps more importantly, a few of the Scottish and Irish sea lochs or loughs (Linnhe, Fyne, Foyle, Swilly) to add to the selection of freshwater land-locked ones.
Finally, I got on to the category which explains my title: the “marques” of motor vehicles. The exceptional jeep is in as a headword, defined as: “trademark/ a small, sturdy motor vehicle …”. The only ordinary marque with its own headword is Rolls-Royce, presumably included because of its metaphoric use. The first definition for it is: “trademark a luxury car produced by the British Rolls-Royce company”. That is not really quite good enough – the company that makes the car is now German owned, and the dictionary does not mention aircraft engines. There are separate entries for Rolls, Charles Stewart, and Royce, Sir Henry (who is mentioned as a designer of aircraft engines), with more or less adequate cross-referencing.
Try the other end of the luxury scale: Austin. There is a headword article, Austin, Henry (1st Baron Austin), which mentions not only the car company but also the famous “baby Austin”. Then you can find Morris, but only if you look under Nuffield 1st Viscount (William Richard Morris) – the other way round from Austin! This entry also does at least hint at the existence of a car marque, with its mention of an “automobile [sic] factory”.
The principle is now clear. Headwords must refer to people, not cars! You can follow up with Benz, Daimler, Ferrari, Ford, Honda, Opel, Porsche, Renault, and perhaps others that I have not thought of. One curious case is that of the Volkswagen. To find any mention of it you must know that it was designed – at Hitler’s request – by the same Porsche, Ferdinand who gave his name to the luxury car. In all these cases, it seems reasonable to point out that the dictionary is using the marque name as a word in its texts, while refusing to recognize it as one. These are not words, they say, but only trade names. But what logic can there be in saying that a trade name – or any proper noun – is not a word?
If you wanted to include some of the other marques on this system you would have a problem. The name of Durant, William, the man mainly responsible for creating General Motors, is apparently not a famous one in Oxford. You could of course have an entry for General Motors, but they don’t seem to have thought of that. So there are no entries for Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet, or Oldsmobile. One of the oddest of all my discoveries, however, is that Chevy is in as a headword, and its definition cannot avoid using that non-word, Chevrolet!
This stupid system extends to other categories. It is what had got Messerschmidt in, while excluding Hurricane and Spitfire. It also accounts for the absence of commercial vehicles like Leyland or Tata, or motor cycles like Triumph or Harley Davidson. Like Durant, neither Harley, William S. nor Davidson, Arthur is a famous name, even if they are now commemorated by the product.
The truth is, I think, that proper nouns used to be excluded from dictionaries solely because the publishers were scared off by the untold millions of them. Now they are letting them in by a system of special exemptions, first and most obviously, famous people and place names but also, on a much smaller scale, a few others that take their fancy, like Rolls-Royce – as well as Bovril, Marmite and Vegemite. This last one, I would guess, was admitted with some reluctance, to keep the Australasians happy. Generally speaking, however, the main rational ground for selecting proper nouns ought to be frequency of use among the English-using people of the world, as deduced from the corpora. If a request were put out for suggestions I think it would animate an army of volunteers, just as the OED has always depended on its “readers”.
It has nothing much to do with my main argument, but I cannot resist pointing out that, while Oxford Online is in many ways a most admirable dictionary, some of its ancillary features are a joke. Do look up Bucephalus and read the list of “Other words in this category”! There is much more of this kind of thing throughout the dictionary, which can only mean that the overstretched staff cannot find time to check on what their mad computers are doing. Greatly increased staffing will be needed to publish many more of the enormous list of words which have become possible, and I think desirable inclusions. But if the printing of dictionaries stops, there will be a lot of highly qualified people available. And trade names are surely the best bait for more advertisements to pay for it all. If they are handled as unobtrusively as the relatively few that are already there, users will have nothing to complain about.
