Case studies: Lexicographer: Matthew

Matthew has a degree in ancient and modern history and an MPhil in Greek and Roman History from Oxford University. He works as a lexicographer for the Oxford University Press (OUP).

I studied ancient and modern history at Oxford, and after working for a couple of years I decided I wanted to find a job that really interested me. I therefore returned to Oxford for an MPhil in Greek and Roman History with the intention of finding employment somewhere in academia, though not necessarily in teaching.

While studying I also worked part time, and the last of these part-time jobs was as a researcher on the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) , finding new illustrative quotations for the editors working on revising the dictionary to use as evidence. This gave me experience of working with the OED’s software and within its editorial processes and also suggested to me that I would enjoy a full-time editorial role.

Consequently, when editorial vacancies became available, I applied and was taken on as an assistant editor in the New Words group. Although my study of English ended at A-level, my degrees had required a high level of literacy and the ability to express myself fluently, and I could demonstrate an interest in languages and how they change over time, as one of the modules of my MPhil was in classical philology and historical linguistics.

Oxford University Press (OUP)  publishes many English dictionaries aimed at different markets. The OED is the largest and most comprehensive of these: it is a historical dictionary chronicling the development of the English language over hundreds of years. This requires a large number of editors with different areas of responsibility: revision, scientific terms, etymology, etc. As an editor in the New Words group, my role is to investigate, research and define words, and senses of existing words, that have not yet been added to the OED.

The third edition of the OED is an ongoing project and quarterly updates are published online. As well as working systematically through the alphabet, I also work on new words and senses that fall outside the alphabetical sequence and make any necessary revisions to previous New Words work in sections of the dictionary that are being revised. Once I have finished working on a set of new entries, a senior editor reviews what I have done and we discuss possible changes or problems arising from the work. I then make any necessary changes and the text then proceeds up the chain of editors before being published online.

As with all jobs in publishing, there are many more applicants than places, and the number of places is limited by the fact that there are only so many publishers who produce dictionaries. Relevant degrees in subjects such as English are useful, but don’t be put off if you don’t have these; as I found, practical experience and demonstrable enthusiasm are also looked well upon. The most important attributes, though, are a love of language and a fascination with how it works. If you have these, then lexicography may be for you.