The Meaning of Everything by Simon Winchester August 28, 2006

This is the story of the seventy years it took to create and publish the Oxford English Dictionary, ten volumes containing 414,000 words and over 1.2 million quotations, with definitions, pronunciations and the derivations of the words. Sounds pretty dry, doesn't it? More like fascinating. The story is pretty incredible. Think about it, no computers! And look at this picture of the editor, James Murray (right, check out that hat). Goodness, he stuck with it for fifty years. Winchester delights in including little tidbits about the people who contributed to the massive effort, very interesting, some sad, and others quite humorous. I've always taken dictionaries for granted, but not anymore. The scholarship required to put the work together is staggering. And Winchester is extremely erudite himself. I found myself underlining words that I had never heard of or couldn't define. Most of these words were part of the story, not examples of actual entries in the OED. And the context didn't help me figure them out very well. I got out my trusty 1973 edition of the American Heritage Dictionary to learn more. Here's some examples: Inchoate, amanuensis, pudicity, prolixity, polymathic, rebarbative, decussate, orthoepy, gallimaufry, oleaginous, and catafalque.This is an excellent book, well researched, interesting, thought-provoking, etc. etc. Probably should be rated a 5, but I'm going 4.75 because it's about a dictionary, for pete's sake.
Rating 4.75

Comments:

cyndi said...
I loved this book. I was a little worried when I heard it was about a dictionary. But it turned out to be a great read! Ben has read The Profressor and the Mad Man by this same author. He really liked both books. I still need to read the Professor one.
11:29 AM

Framed said...
Cyndi, I've heard about the Professor book also. I just need to get in the right mindset to read more about dictionaries. Sorry about the quiz. There is supposed to be two columns, so try to imagine it that way and match the word (numbers) with the right definition (letters).
8:53 PM
Ben said...
I read the Professor and the Madman first. It's great, too. I'm not sure which I prefer--probably neither. They're both great.I love this type of book: the whole author digging deep into one topic and showing that everything has a good story if you look close enough. I've read several like this on various topics and the passion of the author for the topic always gets me. They're kind of like biographies of things or events.
7:38 AM

booklogged said...
I haven't done the quiz yet, but I will so don't post the answers yet.I realized that I hadn't read this book. I read the Madman and the Professor for bookclub. Someone told us at bookclub that they were making a movie of Madman with Robyn Williams as the lead. Haven't heard or seen anything further about it. I hope it's true, though.