10 questions with Katherine Barber
Thu Oct 11, 2007

By: By Tim Kelly

Katherine Barber is the editor-in-chief of the Canadian Oxford Dictionary and author of Six Words You Never Knew Had Something to do with Pigs. She will be appearing at the Whitby Public Library main branch on Wednesday, Oct. 17, from 7-9 p.m. to sign copies of her latest book, Only in Canada You Say: A Treasury of Canadian Language. She talks to us about compiling and editing the best-selling Canadian Oxford Dictionary.

1. Where did the idea for the Canadian Oxford Dictionary originate?

Oxford University Press Canada, which has been publishing Canadian books for over 100 years, had been interested in doing a Canadian dictionary since the mid 1960s. Between 1960 and 1990 Oxford dictionaries of many varieties of English were being worked on: Australian, New Zealand, South Africa, Caribbean; these all fed into the big Oxford English Dictionary. In the early 1990s, OUP decided to invest the money needed to do a serious Canadian dictionary and I was hired at the end of 1991.

2. How difficult was it to produce the first edition of the dictionary?

Very. We started with the eighth edition of the Concise Oxford Dictionary, which is essentially a dictionary of British English with no Canadian content. We had to set up a huge reading program for Canadian text so that we had something to base the dictionary on. We had to research the vocabulary of subjects that were particularly important to Canadians as well: hockey, curling, figure skating, rodeo, logging, mining, fishing, flora, fauna, native peoples, etc. It took six of us five years to edit the British dictionary to reflect how English is used in Canada currently. By the time we were finished, only four per cent of our dictionary entries are identical to the original entries in the Concise.

3. Was there a big demand for a new Canadian dictionary?

We sold 100,000 in the first year, so I would say yes!

4. How do you determine what words get in and what don’t?

Like all Oxford dictionaries, we look at massive amounts of evidence of the language in use, both from Canada and around the world. We have an ongoing reading program where people read books, magazines, newspapers, etc., looking for new words and usages; when they find one it gets keyed into a big database. Once we have 15 examples from 15 different sources over five years for a word, we put it in the dictionary. It doesn’t matter if the word is slang or formal; we have the same inclusion criteria. Very specialized vocabulary doesn’t get included because we don’t have room, but with 130,000 words, the Canadian Oxford includes more than enough for most people’s everyday needs.

5. Do you get a lot of feedback from users of the dictionary?

We get the occasional letter or phone call. Sometimes people complain because they can’t find a word (it may not have been included for the reasons above); sometimes they complain because they can find a word! This happens particularly with swear words.

6. How do you decide when it is time to do a new edition of the COD?

We do a new edition of the big dictionary about every six to eight years.

7. How many people are involved in compiling the dictionary?

At the moment we have a staff of three full-time including myself. The staff was a lot bigger when we did the first edition. You should bear in mind it is no longer “the” dictionary as we have a range of five dictionaries plus two thesauruses.

8. Have you always had a fascination with words?

For as long as I can remember. Apparently I told my parents when I was about five that I had a good “vobaculary” (sic).

9. How do you deal with profanity in the dictionary?

We have a whole range of Canadian Oxford dictionaries. We include profanities in the biggest dictionaries which are intended for use by adults; we label them with strong labels and usage notes such as “coarse slang” “taboo slang” “highly taboo”, etc. We have other dictionaries intended for use in schools; we do not include profanities in them at the request of teachers. Our smallest dictionaries do not include them as a space-saving measure.

10. What is the future of the hardback or paperback dictionary in an Internet world?

People are increasingly using online dictionaries and we are looking at ways of delivering our dictionaries electronically in a way that we can still make money to pay our lexicographers! We hope that people realize that for dictionaries to be reliable tools, they actually have to be researched and written by someone who has to work for a living. Canadians in particular feel the need for an authoritative dictionary that tells them how Canadians spell, not how Americans or the British spell. I think therefore that dictionaries will still exist; they may just be only electronic eventually.