During the late 19th and early 20th century, thousands of volunteers helped crowdsource the Oxford English Dictionary. This venerable reference work includes citations sent in by inventors, eccentrics, scientists and educators, an Arctic explorer —...
In the 19th century, the Oxford English Dictionary was a bit like the Wikipedia of its day, in that much of its information was crowdsourced, gathered by thousands of volunteers. Linguist and lexicographer Sarah Ogilvie tells the stories of many of...
bench cut n.—Gloss: A terraced or step-like cut in soil, stone, wood, or other material. «Volunteers will learn how to decrease erosion on slopes by a method called “bench cutting.” They will then make some bench cuts on local trails...
panelizing n.— «Volunteers gave up an entire weekend last April for the “blitz build.” The frame of the house, which was built last winter inside a large warehouse, was moved to the site for this event. Volunteers then put the walls and...
rabbit n.— «Volunteers must go through an 80-hour training course to be certified Investigative Man Tracking Search Associates.…Once they got their orders, the three rescuers doing the assessment went right to work identifying signs...
whoop n.— «Much of the trail has developed a “cupped” condition, with a large berm of soil having built up on the outside edge of the trail. In places, the cupping is quite deep, and the undulations in the trail (known as “whoops” in...