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The Meaning of Everything: The Story of the Oxford English Dictionary
Contributor(s): Winchester, Simon (Author)

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ISBN: 019517500X     ISBN-13: 9780195175004
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
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Binding Type: Paperback - See All Available Formats & Editions
Published: October 2004
* Out of Print *

Annotation: From the bestselling author of "The Professor and the Madman, The Map That Changed the World," and "Krakatoa" comes a wonderful celebration of the English language and of its treasure house, the "Oxford English Dictionary."
Additional Information
BISAC Categories:
- Literary Criticism | Books & Reading
- Literary Criticism | English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh
Dewey: 423.092
Physical Information: 0.72" H x 4.94" W x 8.01" L (0.71 lbs) 288 pages
Themes:
- Chronological Period - 19th Century
- Cultural Region - British Isles
Features: Bibliography, Illustrated, Index
Review Citations: New York Times 09/26/2004 pg. 28
Kliatt 11/01/2004 pg. 29
 
Descriptions, Reviews, Etc.
Publisher Description:
From the best-selling author of The Professor and the Madman, The Map That Changed the World, and Krakatoa comes a truly wonderful celebration of the English language and of its unrivaled treasure house, the Oxford English Dictionary.
Writing with marvelous brio, Winchester first serves up a lightning history of the English language--"so vast, so sprawling, so wonderfully unwieldy"--and pays homage to the great dictionary makers, from "the irredeemably famous" Samuel Johnson to the "short, pale, smug and boastful"
schoolmaster from New Hartford, Noah Webster. He then turns his unmatched talent for story-telling to the making of this most venerable of dictionaries. In this fast-paced narrative, the reader will discover lively portraits of such key figures as the brilliant but tubercular first editor Herbert
Coleridge (grandson of the poet), the colorful, boisterous Frederick Furnivall (who left the project in a shambles), and James Augustus Henry Murray, who spent a half-century bringing the project to fruition. Winchester lovingly describes the nuts-and-bolts of dictionary making--how unexpectedly
tricky the dictionary entry for marzipan was, or how fraternity turned out so much longer and monkey so much more ancient than anticipated--and how bondmaid was left out completely, its slips found lurking under a pile of books long after the B-volume had gone to press. We visit the ugly corrugated
iron structure that Murray grandly dubbed the Scriptorium--the Scrippy or the Shed, as locals called it--and meet some of the legion of volunteers, from Fitzedward Hall, a bitter hermit obsessively devoted to the OED, to W. C. Minor, whose story is one of dangerous madness, ineluctable sadness, and
ultimate redemption.
The Meaning of Everything is a scintillating account of the creation of the greatest monument ever erected to a living language. Simon Winchester's supple, vigorous prose illuminates this dauntingly ambitious project--a seventy-year odyssey to create the grandfather of all word-books, the
world's unrivalled uber-dictionary.
 
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