Rating: 
Summary: Great fun for the over-educated (like me)
Review: A delightful bit of business, mainly because of Winchester's taste for the bizarre. The actual history is liberally salted with mostly unrelated anecdotes (such as the fact that during one editor's graduation ceremony, a bench collapsed and dumped a row of dons onto the ground). The first chapter on the history of English is a bit slow-going, but still fascinating. Enjoy!
Rating:
Summary: Simply Wonderful
Review: Absolutely one of the finest books one can pick up! This is a wonderful, elucidating account of the creation of the OED. The author, whose prose has graced the subjects of Krakatoa and 'The map that changed the world' now sheds light on the processes by which the OED was created. His enlightening sketches of the many gifted souls who lent their knowledge and intimate knowledge of the English Language is a tale of greatness and heritage. Reading this will make you feel like a flower that has just been watered, enriched by the greatness of the English language and its diversity and many influences. The authors grasp on his subject is overwhelming and many topics are covered. This book should not be missed. The audio version, read by the author, is truly perfect.
Rating:
Summary: A work of pure genious
Review: Absolutely one of the finest books/audio Cds one can pick up! This is a wonderful, elucidating account of the creation of the OED. The author, whose prose has graced the subjects of Krakatoa and 'The map that changed the world' now sheds light on the processes by which the OED was created. His enlightening sketches of the many gifted souls who lent their knowledge and intimate knowledge of the English Language is a tale of greatness and heritage. Reading this will make you feel like a flower that has just been watered, enriched by the greatness of the English language and its diversity and many influences. The authors grasp on his subject is overwhelming and many topics are covered. This book should not be missed. The audio version, read by the author, is truly perfect.Seth J. Frantzman
Rating:
Summary: A Real Delight
Review: Anything by Simon Winchester is bound to be a delight due to his mastery of the English language and his ability to tell a fascinating tale. In The Meaning of Everything he returns to much of the same subject matter as he covered in his best known work, The Professor and the Madman. The Oxford English Dictionary is a peerless reference work. Winchester tells the story of how it was conceived and brought to fruition by the work of numerous talented men and women from the mid eighteen hundreds up until the 1920s. He describes the painstaking work that developing each etymology and definition involved and the many personalities involved, most especially the greatest of the Dictionary's editors, Sir James Murray. There are also many vignettes of some of the others who spent time and energy creating the Dictionary, including J.R.R. Tolkien, who created many of the W definitions. This is a delightful book that will entertain you even if you rarely have occasion to consult the OED.
Rating: 
Summary: If you want to learn how the great OED was made...
Review: Don't look toward this book to learn much about the actual art and science of lexicography. Perhaps Winchester was hamstrung by Oxford University Press and was not allowed to reveal much about the process of dictionary-making by the OED editors. The book jumps around, touching upon various people and events -- but other than in-depth descriptions of Frederick Furnivall and James Murray (whose personality and work were better described in "Caught in the Web of Words"), there is not great satisfaction in getting to know the original staff. That said, it seems from the marketing that the intention of the book was more to tell the story of how the OED got made -- but most readers will be disappointed when looking for what makes the OED better and more authoritative and how the dictionary entries were and are actually written. The Scriptorium's whereabouts and physical characteristics were so focused-upon that it almost comes across as the `main character' of the book! "Professor and the Madman" was far superior to this. This book seems pieced together -- and quickly.
Rating:
Summary: Approaching the Mount Everest of Lexicography
Review: Having flown past Mt. Everest fome 20 times (WWII service with the USAF's Air Transport Command's "Over the Hump" service between Assam Province and China) I felt awe-stricken even at the distance of about 100 miles. Before reading Winchester's account of the OED's birth and evolution I looked at my set this work merely as an Everest of sorts, not to be comprehended by mere beginners such as mysekf. I can now begin to understand a bit about the true historical nature of this work created "On Historical Principles." Check this book out of the library, if possible, otherwise, BUY!
Rating:
Summary: OED--Beginning to End
Review: I am a big fan of Winchester's first book on the OED, The Professor & the Madman, so how could I pass up this book? Whereas in his previous book Winchester basically focused on a single relationship in the construction of this great dictionary, here he gives us the broad view of the story, from its conception by a group of philologists to its completion nearly 70 years later. This is a marvelous book. Of course, Winchester gives us the story of the "great men" whose vision and hard work brought this great dictionary into being--Herbert Coleridge, grandson of the famous poet; Frederick Furnivall, whose lust for life nearly buried the project; James Murray, who dedicated the better part of his life to its completion--but he also gives us much more. He brings these men to life. He brings the world which made such men to life as well. It is an eminently readable tale. And, beginning and end, Winchester gives us the precursors of the dictionary--Johnson & Webster--as well as a taste of its impact on our world. I cannot imagine that anyone with a love of words or reading would pass up an opportunity to read this book.
Rating:
Summary: A delightful romp through a monumental history
Review: I could not bring myself to put this book down--it was too fascinating in too many ways. Other reviewers have amply and most revealingly described it; I will content myself with touching upon the prose style, and perhaps speculating on why narratives like this so irresistibly draw us, through the blood and guts and glory of the story of that imperishable monument to an imperishable language: the OED. As is the case with all narratives of the first water, the style may strike us initially as a shade strange, almost un-English. But there is something of the English bulldog spirit in taking a sentence to completion, and something of genuine English pluck in commencing the next, which infects the reader with excitement for the riotous adventure that awaits him. Our literary tastes may have become rather nuanced, and, shall we perhaps say, jaded: we demand of an author no less than a total experience, the fullness of actually being in a place and an age. We want to converse with the characters, and bodily feel the ceaseless excitement of a great enterprise--in short, we relish a fine history in much the same way as we relish the finest travel writing. This is where Mr Winchester shines. His characters, how towering soever their intellectual stature, are stubbornly human. They indulge in "impish humor", or come up with "happy suggestions", or get "mischievously tipsy"--all rather tempered, of course, to befit their gravitas. The generous heapings of local color and trivia--often insinuated into sentences with the most exultantly nervy windings of prose--vitalize the matter which could so easily have remained lifeless as a clod. The imposing "Webster ratio" (read the book to find out what I mean) is one of the chief features which will strike the reader at the outset. It is impossible in such a limited space to do justice to this book. As it happens, I labor with a handicap--no pigeonhole known to man can truly classify it. Let us hope that more books of this nature descend upon bookshelves, with a more assured regularity. And now, with some trepidation, I will venture to advance a risky suggestion: though the characters of this story have been praised as Dickensian, the most Dickensian character that emerges from it is none other than the author. He speaks to us from another era altogether--the era which may perhaps have Anthony Trollope at one end and Evelyn Waugh at the other. The picture of a bygone age, when erudite old men constituted a real elite, may make us "verklempt". But the merit of this book is that it, though far from being overtly hagiographic, demonstrates that now even more than before, in a subtler and surer manner, Britannia indeed rules the waves. If you enjoy sitting through an elegant candlelight supper, you will enjoy this book. If there is no time to beg or borrow--steal it!
Rating: 
Summary: The meaning of everything shot out of a cannon
Review: I knew I was in trouble with this book when I found myself fantasizing about cleaning my bathroom to avoid reading. I'm in full agreement with the critique posted Octobert 22 by a reveiwer from CT. This book seemed thrown together capriciously, as if bits of information were written on confetti and blown out of a cannon. Still, I gave the book two stars for content; albeit some of that content, in the form of footnotes, seemed like filler.
Rating:
Summary: Could have been written by an eminent Victorian
Review: I wouldn't exactly say this book is gripping or enthralling. Winchester writes with a kind of distant, haughty prose which comes across as rather ... Victorian. You'll be reaching for your own dictionary more than once as you read this book. Of course, this is entirely appropriate considering the subject matter. Winchester could practically be "channeling" Professor Murray himself. The book is full of heavily researched footnotes and asides. More than once I imagined it must have taken the author a week to get the facts for a single tangential sentence. But it all goes down easy thanks to his good sense of humor. There's a lot here for word lovers, of course, but also for those with a casual interest in Victorian intellectual society.
| 
