The OED, Its Goals, Its Flaws

While the purpose of this book is not entirely to lead up to how the OED became the thing that it is, this chapter feels like everything was leading to this moment. Without understanding the long history of editorial moral anxiety over the content of dictionaries, the specific choices made in compiling what was intended to be a neutral "scientific" record of the English language might seem more sinister than they were. And yet here we are: a work that purports to objectivity and yet systematically and deliberately erases, obscures, and vilifies f/f sexuality. There is a lesson here for all historical study of female same-sex relations. So much of the information has come down to us was filtered through the goals and biases of people who had a deliberate agenda along those lines. It doesn't mean that the historic data is useless, but rather that--as many queer and feminist historians have pointed out--it must be read "across the grain" to account for those biases.