Editing Oxford English Dictionary (section)

=== Origins ===
The dictionary began as a [[Philological Society]] project of a small group of intellectuals in London (and unconnected to [[Oxford University]]):<ref name=Winchester1999>{{cite book |title=The Professor and the Madman |url=https://archive.org/details/professormadman00simo |url-access=registration |last=Winchester |first=Simon |year=1999 |publisher=HarperPerennial |location=New York |isbn=978-0-06-083978-9}}</ref>{{rp|103–104, 112}} [[Richard Chenevix Trench]], [[Herbert Coleridge]], and [[Frederick James Furnivall|Frederick Furnivall]], who were dissatisfied with the existing English dictionaries. The society expressed interest in compiling a new dictionary as early as 1844,<ref>{{Cite journal |title=Thoughts on Writing a History of the ''Oxford English Dictionary'' |last=Gilliver |first=Peter |author-link=Peter Gilliver |date=2013 |journal=Dictionaries: Journal of the Dictionary Society of North America |doi=10.1353/dic.2013.0011 |volume=34 |pages=175–183 |s2cid=143763718}}</ref> but it was not until June 1857 that they began by forming an "Unregistered Words Committee" to search for words that were unlisted or poorly defined in current dictionaries. In November, Trench's report was not a list of unregistered words; instead, it was the study ''On Some Deficiencies in our English Dictionaries'', which identified seven distinct shortcomings in contemporary dictionaries:<ref>{{Cite journal |url=https://archive.org/details/onsomedeficienci00trenrich |title=On Some Deficiencies in Our English Dictionaries |last=Trench |first=Richard Chenevix |author-link=Richard Chenevix Trench |date=1857 |journal=Transactions of the Philological Society |volume=9 |pages=3–8}}</ref>
* Incomplete coverage of obsolete words
* Inconsistent coverage of families of related words
* Incorrect dates for earliest use of words
* History of obsolete senses of words often omitted
* Inadequate distinction among [[synonyms]]
* Insufficient use of good illustrative quotations
* Space wasted on inappropriate or redundant content.

The society ultimately realized that the number of unlisted words would be far more than the number of words in the English dictionaries of the 19th century, and shifted their idea from covering only words that were not already in English dictionaries to a larger project. Trench suggested that a new, truly ''comprehensive'' dictionary was needed. On 7 January 1858, the society formally adopted the idea of a comprehensive new dictionary.<ref name=Winchester1999 />{{rp|107–108}} Volunteer readers would be assigned particular books, copying passages illustrating word usage onto quotation slips. Later the same year, the society agreed to the project in principle, with the title ''A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles'' (''NED'').<ref name=Craigie />{{rp|ix–x}}