#54Title: The Meaning of Everything: The Story of the Oxford English Dictionary
Author: Simon Winchester
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Year: 2003
Genre: History, English language
260 pages
A pleasing history of the making of the Oxford English Dictionary by the author of the related The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary, q.v. It used to be that one could get a copy of the Compact OED by joining a book club, and used copies were easy to find as well. When I went to college, I schlepped my Compact OED to school, home, and to school again each year. I still enjoy reading dictionaries (whether monolingual or translating) and thesauri about as much as I enjoy reading books with plots or narratives, and I'm sure I would have enjoyed the work of the Unregistered Words Committee (which, alas, quickly found its task subsumed in the grander and more ambitious project the OED soon became).
Winchester is a fine writer with an enjoyably large vocabulary. This book has somewhat uneven pacing, with some chapters lagging a bit while others move quickly. The conclusion seemed somewhat rushed; I'd have liked more discussion of the OED's reception when the series was finally complete. The sections on internal disputes, lexicographic standards, and the volunteers who provided illustrative quotations are all very pleasant reading.
A few nitpicks:
Page 8: Though borrowed through Latin, at least three on his list of "Latin-originated words" (idol, martyr, psalm) are actually Greek-originated words.
Page 22: "sacerdotall" is not "now mercifully gone" but alive and well and spelled sacerdotal.
Though the promotional material says that "Winchester lovingly describes the nuts-and-bolts of dictionary making — how unexpectedly tricky the dictionary entry for marzipan was," this is somewhat misleading, as Winchester disappointingly references the same datum--that marzipan was difficult--but does not tell us why.
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