But the word “electronica” doesn’t appear anywhere it it, that I can see. And even if it did, it wouldn’t be suitable for a Macquarie Dictionary reference since the BBC is, um, how shall I put this…? British.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/2669735.stm

I know a thing or two about lexicography, the process of constructing dictionaries. When I studied linguistics one of my tutors was the late George Turner, editor of the Australian editions of the Oxford dictionaries. (I’ll tell you the story of the word “now” at some point.) Don’t confuse him with the SF writer of the same name.

And early editions of the Macquarie Dictionary didn’t have the word “treadly” because it’s mostly a South Australian usage. Broadcaster Keith Conlon knew of one usage in Colin Thiele’s novel The Sun on the Stubble (he’d just finished recording it as an audio book). We were told to find another. Current editions now have it.

treadly

noun (plural treadlies) Colloquial a bicycle. Also treadle, deadly treadly.

Moost of the time, the Macquarie’s lexicographers refer to Ozcorp.

Ozcorp is a database of Australian English collected for lexicographical purposes. It contains at present approximately 23 million words, with significant representation from Australian fiction, non-fiction and newspapers. Although there is a bias towards contemporary material, the database includes many texts from the 19th century through to World War II. There is also a small amount of material derived from letters, advertisements, and some spoken transcriptions.

That’s from The Macquarie Dictionary, its History and its Editorial Practices, written describing the Third Edition.

The Fourth Edition was released in 2005, and says Ozcorp contains texts written 1850 to 2004, and that they also search “contemporary news texts, especially from Australian Associated Press and ABC News Online” and “Australian documents on the Internet.

But back to “electronica”…

I’ll drop a note to the Macquarie Dictionary pointing to some earlier references, and asking for the citations they’re using. My gut feeling is that things like the Spectrum arts supplement to the Sydney Morning Herald have started using it to label music reviews relatively recently — and this would certainly fit the demographic profile of the “doctors’ wives” demographic who become Friends of the Macquarie Dictionary and submit words.

That’s not even hard. Do they pay these dictionary guys or what?