Middle English Dictionary Middle English Dictionary The Middle English Dictionary is a dictionary of Middle English published by the University of Michigan. "Its 15,000 pages offer a comprehensive analysis of lexicon and usage for the period 1100-1500, based on the analysis of a collection of over three million citation slips, the largest collection of this kind available." The project began in the 1920s. The first instalment, "Plan and Bibliography", containing a list of Middle English texts used for the "Middle English Dictionary", was published by Hans Kurath and Sherman Kuhn in 1954. More fascicles were published in numerous volumes (in alphabetical order) over
Oxford English Dictionary attitudes to language which have previously led to these classifications. Harris also faults the editors' "donnish conservatism" and their adherence to prudish Victorian morals, citing as an example the non-inclusion of "various centuries-old 'four-letter words until 1972. However, no English dictionary included such words, for fear of possible prosecution under British obscenity laws, until after the conclusion of the "Lady Chatterley's Lover" obscenity trial in 1960. The first dictionary to include the word "fuck" was the "Penguin English Dictionary" of 1965. Joseph Wright's "English Dialect Dictionary" had included "shit" in 1905. The "OED"s claims of authority have also been questioned