COBUILD

COBUILD: The Evolving Corpus. How corpus use has changed over the years

Size matters when it comes to corpora. At 220 million words of text, the corpus used to create the second edition of the COBUILD dictionary in 1995 was over ten times the size of the one used for the first edition, and 220 times bigger than the first electronic corpora… Read More

COBUILD: Shifting senses. How meanings of words have changed over the last 30 years

In the 30 years since the publication of the first COBUILD dictionary, a whole flurry of new words has come into the language and as they’ve caught on and become part of everyday usage, they’ve been added to the dictionary. I’m not just talking about the trendy new coinages that… Read More

COBUILD: The Early Years: Part 2. A dictionary from a corpus

By the time I arrived at COBUILD as part of the 1993 intake recruited to work on the second edition of the dictionary, the whole project had been fully computerised for several years. This meant working on screen at terminals linked to mainframe computers that hummed away in a separate… Read More

COBUILD Design and Layout: Changes over the last 30 years

Where were you 30 years ago? I was in the middle of my university studies, still to embark on my ELT career, and as such, a smidgin too late to be part of the intrepid and free-spirited COBUILD dictionary team. Led by the late John Sinclair, this large young team… Read More

COBUILD: The Early Years: Part 1. Where it all began

I have always counted myself as incredibly fortunate to have worked as part of the COBUILD team at the time that I did, between October 1983 and the end of 1986. I was not quite 24 when I arrived in Birmingham, not knowing one end of a dictionary definition from… Read More

COBUILD 30th ANNIVERSARY

Since 1987, Collins COBUILD has been a leading source of authentic English worldwide. Now celebrating its 30th year, COBUILD continues to provide invaluable and detailed guidance on the English language. 1st edition, 1987 2nd edition, 1995… Read More