The Meaning of Everything: The Story of the Oxford English Dictionary

Rating:
Summary: improves on "The Professor..."
Review: Simon Winchester's The Meaning of Everything seems at first glance to merely be a sequel to the popular The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of The Oxford English Dictionary. But I found The Meaning... to be a vastly superior book. Frankly I think that The Professor... would have made a good, long, chapter in this book (as it is you have several pages of rehash to retell Minor's story).

I think what makes book better is that Winchester has more meat to chew on. The making of the OED was not a simple affair and the whole thing seems to have very nearly met its end on more than one occasion. The book reads like a fantastic novel, complete with good guys and evil villains. And along the way you get to learn a good deal about a) the English language, b) lexicography (Dictionary study) and c) the English society that produced such a monumental (in all meanings of the word) work.

I felt a little cheated towards the end when the last 70 odd years of the OED are wrapped up in a few pages. I would have found it fascinating to learn more how the work of gathering up new words for the planned 2007 edition has changed since the original plan in the 1860s. And Winchester still tends to wander just a bit too much for my taste.

All in all a good solid read that will entertain and edify at the same time.

Rating:
Summary: A Story of Flawed People Who Together, Made A Masterpiece
Review: The Oxford English Dictionary is an unrivaled monument to the history, beauty and complexity of the English language. The story of the men and women who made this marvelous work makes for compellling reading, especially in the hands of such a skilled storyteller as Simon Winchester.

"The Professor and the Madman," Winchester's first best-seller, was the story of Dr. W.C. Minor, an American who had gone to England in what was a vain hope of regaining his sanity. Instead, he committed a senseless murder, and was imprisoned in an asylum for life. Minor found redemption in his otherwise ruined life by devoting decades of service as a volunteer reader/researcher for the OED.

In his introduction to this volume, Winchester explains that an editor at the Oxford University Press suggested that since he had written a footnote to the story of the great enterprise, he might want to undertake the main story. Fortunately for us, he took up the suggestion with enthusiasm.

The pace of the narrative never falters in its entire 250 pages. The opening chapter provides a brief overview of the evolution of English and of previous efforts to compile a truly comprehensive dictionary of the language--and why all fell short of that lofty goal.

What became the OED enterprise had its origins in the late 1850s, but the first completed dictionary pages did not see the light of day until the early 1880s. Why the project was almost stillborn, how it survived deaths, disorganization, lack of funds and innumerable other setbacks--all of this is brought vividly to life in Winchester's tale. Even when the great editor James Murray took the helm and the project finally emerged from chaos, it still faced obstaces, especially from those who would have sacraficed quality in order to produce a swifter, but less authoratative, final product.

Today, the third edition of the OED is in preparation by a staff working in modern offices, making use of all the tools of twenty-first century information technology. The contrast to the conditions facing makers of the original OED, laboring by hand, sorting tens of thousands of slips of paper into pigenhole slots in an ugly, dank corrugated tin shed (grandly named the "Scriptorium" by Murray) is startling, and makes their achievement all the more amazing--and grand.

Dr. Minor makes a brief appearance in the story, along with some of the other unusual and exemplary volunteer contributors from around the world who combed nearly 800 years of English literature to give the OED its impressive depth. While none of the other's stories may be quite as extreme as Minor's, it's clear that for many, their involvement in this great cause (with no pay and little recognition) also gave depth and meaning to their lives.

It's the vivid, human qualities that Winchester illuminates so well make this a great story...one that you won't want to miss.

Rating:
Summary: It's about people, not words
Review: This is a wonderful history of the OED - why it was started, its development over a long period, and most of all about the editors who made it.

There's only a little about the supplements and editions after the first, but that's no matter. The focus of the book is on the editors, and especially their eccentricities, and the difficulties put in their way by the sponsors of the dictionary, Oxford itself and its Press, by their collaborators, and by the language itself.

Incidental to the story, but at least as interesting, is something of the process of making a historical dictionary, and the development of English over the last 2500 years.

Brilliantly written, although some anecdotes are repeated which makes me think that Winchester was in a bit of a hurry.

Rating:
Summary: Needed some of that famous editing....
Review: This is an interesting story well-told, but I find myself in agreement with those readers who feel that it was somewhat hastily thrown together. On page 75 (of the first hardcover edition, Oxford University Press, 2003, 2nd printing), the writer tells us as simple fact that James Murray, born in 1837, "cherished the fact that he had managed to befriend a local ancient who had been alive when Parliament proclaimed William and Mary joint sovereign in 1689..." Do the math. If this "ancient" was two years old in 1689, he would be 152 years old in 1839 when Murray might be old enough to meet and remember him. Ancient indeed, and worth at least a comment. On page 124, the writer says of compositor James Gilbert "He joined the Press as an apprentice in 1880... and was still working 36 years later when the final words... were set in January 1928." Perhaps he was docked 12 years for lollygagging. I tend to think that Mr. Gilbert worked for the 48 years because 36 years at the same job is not so remarkable. What is remarkable is that this kind of obvious error would get past the august editors at the Oxford University Press.