The Meaning of Everything: The Story of the Oxford English Dictionary [Hardcover]

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

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.

The story of the making of the Oxford English Dictionary has been burnished into legend over the years, at least among librarians and linguists. In The Professor and the Madman (1998), Winchester examined the strange case of one of the most prolific contributors to the first edition of the OED--one W. C. Minor, an American who sent most of his quotation slips from an insane asylum. Now, Winchester takes on the dictionary's whole history, from the first attempts to document the English language in the seventeenth century, the founding of the Philological Society in Oxford in 1842, and the start of work on the dictionary in 1860; to the completion of the first edition nearly 70 years, 414,825 words, and 1,827,306 illustrative quotations later. Although there is plenty of detail here about the methodology (including the famous pigeon holes stuffed with quotations slips from contributors around the world), the emphasis is on personalities, in particular James Murray, who became the OED's third editor in 1879 and died in 1915, "well into the letter T." The project backers complained loudly about the slow pace over the years, but the scrupulous care taken by Murray and the many others who worked on the OED gave us what is arguably the world's greatest dictionary. Publication of this book coincides with the OED's seveny-fifth anniversary, even as work on the third edition is under way. Mary Ellen Quinn
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`a breezy, engaging and mercifully concise account of a mighty endeavour' John Preston, Sunday Telegraph

`Winchester writes well and entertainingly.' William Palmer, Literary Review

`He has given us a useful and entertaining study that provokes further reflections' Leofranc Holford-Strevens, The London Review of Books

`the account is engaging and its conclusion a triumph...an absorbing account...an entertaining narrative.' John Mullan, The Scotsman

`An absorbing and entertaining history...In brinin to life the deomcratic principles and essential humanity of this extraordinary project, Simon Winchester's captivating book stresses the qualities which made the Oxford English Dictionary the remarkable institution that it remains today.' Tom Penn, Times Literary Supplement

`A delightful short history' Andrew Crumey, Scotland on Sunday

`highly entertaining' Robert Gwyn Palmer, The Resident

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`crafty, astute' Nick Smith, Geographical

`fascinating - and surprisingly gripping - reading' Ireland on Sunday

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.

numerous halftones

Simon Winchester is the author of the bestsellers The Map That Changed the World and The Surgeon of Crowthorne.After studying geology at Oxford, Simon Winchester became a foreign correspondent for the Guardian and the Sunday Times, and was based in Belfast, New Delhi, New York, London, and Hong Kong. He has written for the New York Times, the Smithsonian, the Spectator, and National Geographic, and is a frequent contributor to the BBC. His 1998 book The Surgeon of Crowthorne about the murderer Dr W. C. Minor, whose work from his cell in the Broadmoor Lunatic Asylum was so important in the compilation of the dictionary, was a surprise worldwide bestseller. Simon Winchester lives in Massachusetts, New York, and the Western Isles of Scotland.

The amazing history of the OXFORD ENGLISH DICTIONARY is recounted by its author, and it's a rousing listen. Rife with wit, anecdotes galore, and entertaining wordplay, this audiobook is a must for lovers of the English language. A worthy follow-up to Winchester's THE PROFESSOR AND THE MADMAN, this telling of the creation of the OED reminds one of a decades-long climb up a lexicographer's Everest, with much struggle, infighting, and politics determining the success of the endeavor. Winchester reads crisply, suavely, and convincingly, revealing himself to be an author completely at ease with both the microphone and his material, a rarity in audiobooks. The OED is a monumental achievement, and its history as told by Winchester is a milestone in the epic journey of our language. D.J.B. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2004, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine --This text refers to the Audio CD edition.