It was on New Year's morning, 1928, that an eruption of mad lexical glee from a battered old typewriter on a desk in Baltimore from the hands of Henry Louis Mencken sent news all across the USA of the long-awaited publication of the book that was to crown the English language undisputed monarch of the linguistic kingdom. From the Oxford-based project a total of 414,825 words, ten times as many as had hitherto been suspected of existing, had now been recognized and catalogued, the results of seventy years of Herculean effort by scholars, linguists, and thousands of ordinary and not-so-ordinary people. The Meaning of Everything is a readily accessible historical account of the making of the remarkable Oxford English Dictionary, leading up to the appointment of the first editor, James Murray, in 1879 through to its triumphant publication in 1928 and beyond. Brought to life by Simon Winchester's characteristic talent for story-telling, the achievement of making the dictionary is anunforgettable story, and is further enlivened by portraits of the myriad characters involved in its creation. From the context of early dictionaries and national projects of the Victorian Era, Simon Winchester leads his narrative through early attempts to create what was then expected to be a four-volume dictionary, the appointment of James Murray as editor, the unusual, never-before-attempted way in which the book was constructed, and the people and processes involved in the definition of thousands of words, to the triumphant publication of the dictionary and its adaptation to the age of technology. The profound impact the volumes had when they first appeared, the fame the dictionary has had in the eight decades since, and that it can be expected to have in years to come, receive full and fascinating treatment here at the pen of the best-selling author of The Surgeon of Crowthorne and The Map That Changed The World.
The Meaning of Everything
and over one million other books are available for Amazon Kindle. Learn more
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
There is a newer edition of this item:
|
Book Description
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
Product Description
From Amazon
Ask a logophile or crossword-puzzle addict what the holiest of holy reference works might be, and you're almost certain to receive a three-letter acronym in reply: the OED. Now in 20 volumes and still growing, the Oxford English Dictionary is an astounding monument, one that, like the Great Wall and the Roman Forum, seems to have been around forever. But, writes the always interesting explorer Simon Winchester in The Meaning of Everything, it took decades--and considerable sums of money--to bring it into being. The Scottish autodidact James Augustus Henry Murray, surrounded by a small army of underpaid and overworked helpers, laboured over it for more than half a century, seeing into print "a total of 227,779,589 letters and numbers, occupying fully 178 miles of type" that brought the elusive histories of words such as walrus (courtesy of J. R. R. Tolkien) and cow ("the female of any bovine animal," courtesy of Murray himself) into sharp relief. The making of the great dictionary over the years and decades seems an unlikely topic for a sometimes romantic, sometimes suspenseful tale, but Winchester delivers just that. Those who cherish words will find it a constant pleasure. --Gregory McNamee
From Publishers Weekly
With his usual winning blend of scholarship and accessible, skillfully paced narrative, Winchester (Krakatoa) returns to the subject of his first bestseller, The Professor and the Madman, to tell the eventful, personality-filled history of the definitive English dictionary. He emphasizes that the OED project began in 1857 as an attempt to correct the deficiencies of existing dictionaries, such as Dr. Samuel Johnson's. Winchester opens with an entertaining and informative examination of the development of the English language and pre-OED efforts. The originators of the OED thought the project would take perhaps a decade; it actually took 71 years, and Winchester explores why. An early editor, Frederick Furnivall, was completely disorganized (one sack of paperwork he shipped to his successor, James Murray, contained a family of mice). Murray in turn faced obstacles from Oxford University Press, which initially wanted to cut costs at the expense of quality. Winchester stresses the immensity and difficulties of the project, which required hundreds of volunteer readers and assistants (including J.R.R. Tolkien) to create and organize millions of documents: the word bondmaid was left out of the first edition because its paperwork was lost. Winchester successfully brings readers inside the day-to-day operations of the massive project and shows us the unrelenting passion of people such as Murray and his overworked, underpaid staff who, in the end, succeeded magnificently. Winchester's book will be required reading for word mavens and anyone interested in the history of our marvelous, ever-changing language.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
Explore More
Concordance
Browse Sample PagesConcordance
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most helpful customer reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
By M. Seizer
Format:Hardcover
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.
Format:Hardcover
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.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
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.
Want to see more reviews on this item?
›
Go to Amazon.com to see all 81 reviews
4.5 out of 5 stars
Most recent customer reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
Informative and entertaining
Until I read this book I really had no idea that the OED was, in large measure, created by the contributions of an army of unpaid amateurs. Read more
Published on Oct 22 2010 by C. J. Thompson
5.0 out of 5 stars
Rome wasn't built in a day...
The towering products of the English language include several disparate kinds of works - the plays of Shakespeare, the poetry of Chaucer, the Authorised King James Version of the... Read more
Published on Feb 1 2006 by FrKurt Messick
4.0 out of 5 stars
Needed some of that famous editing....
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. Read more
Published on July 16 2004 by AFL
5.0 out of 5 stars
Awe inspiring on several levels
Simon Winchester's book chronicles the efforts of many individuals who, as he often repeats, never received compensation and only limited recognition. Read more
Published on Jun 20 2004 by William Yarberry
5.0 out of 5 stars
Concise history of the OED
Immediately after I finished undergraduate school, some thirty years ago, I joined a book club, finally free to read for pleasure once again. Read more
Published on Jun 4 2004 by Matthew Spady
5.0 out of 5 stars
Fab Forward
The greatest virtue, it seems to me, of this account of the glacial development of what can only be called the greatest reference work in the English language is its concision. Read more
Published on May 12 2004 by Daniel Myers
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Meaning of an Excellent Book
OED involves -involved and it will involve- a double, towering feat in the history of scholarship. One, for certain, as a majestic monument to a gloriously rich language. Read more
Published on April 7 2004 by Fernando Villegas
5.0 out of 5 stars
A delightful romp through a monumental history
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... Read more
Published on Mar 9 2004 by "scribble136"
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great fun for the over-educated (like me)
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... Read more
Published on Mar 7 2004 by Lynn S. Hendricks
4.0 out of 5 stars
A Great Book and an Improvement Over His Prior on the OED
This book describes the story of the original Oxford English Dictionary (OED) and is not to be confused with the small conventional Oxford dictionary found at a modern bookstore. Read more
Published on Mar 1 2004 by J. E. Robinson
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
- Books > Biographies & Memoirs > Arts & Literature > Authors
- Books > Education & Reference > Dictionaries & Thesauruses > English (British)
- Books > Education & Reference > Foreign Language Study & Reference > Foreign Language Dictionaries & Thesauruses > Irish
- Books > Education & Reference > Foreign Language Study & Reference > Foreign Language Dictionaries & Thesauruses > Welsh
- Books > Education & Reference > Words, Language & Grammar > Linguistics
- Books > History > Europe > England > 19th Century
- Books > Literature & Fiction > Books & Reading > History of Books
- Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Social Sciences > Linguistics > Applied
Feedback
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
