Dancing girls of the Orient and OED3

The editors of the Oxford English Dictionary, now in its third edition, document the diachronic development of English vocabulary from the 12th century to the present day. In so doing, they deal not only with lexical, semantic, and etymological issues but also with what may be termed cultural sensitivity. The hegemony of the British Empire, for instance, resulted in a number of borrowings from languages of indigenous peoples. In line with postcolonial theory, the borrowings need to be handled with caution, regarding, in particular, the quality of defining strategies and quotations illustrating usage. Since the sources of the quotations were produced by white colonisers, however, one might wonder whether casting off the colonial imprint is at all possible. This paper explores the lexicographical treatment of a handful of headwords for Eastern dancers. It aims to find out how the terms for concepts originating from the imperial periphery, embedded in a Victorian dictionary produced in the imperial metropole, have been reshaped for modern users and whether the treatment might be further refined.