The Meaning of Everything

The Story of the Oxford English Dictionary
Author: Simon Winchester
Genre: nonfiction, history
Publication info: Oxford University Press, 2003
Pages: 260

In just a few days, I'll be leaving for England. I'm part of a study abroad program that will focus on the English language in its many varieties. As part of our sightseeing, we will visit Oxford, that old and prestigious university, home of the famous Oxford University Press as well as that monumental work, the Oxford English Dictionary.

I knew that the OED was cool, having used it a bit in my schoolwork, but I had no idea before reading this book of what a behemoth project it truly was (and is). Did you know that the first edition took almost seventy years to produce? It began in 1857 with a speech by a member of the Philological Society, in which he detailed the weaknesses of the dictionaries that had been made to that point. A few years later, work began on the dictionary to end all dictionaries—the one that could give the meaning of everything. Not until 1928 was the work of the first edition completed. That's a lot of lexicography!

The Meaning of Everything tells the story of the OED's development, dwelling particularly on the times when the project almost fell apart—an event that happened a surprising number of times. The OED saw several editors come and go, the most important of which was James Murray, the humble yet enthusiastic philologist who oversaw the project for something like forty years. But other, more interesting people factor in as well, such as Frederick Furnivall, the irresponsible ladies' man; Henry Sweet, the rude phonetician who was the inspiration for Henry Higgins in Pygmalion (or My Fair Lady, if you like); and W. C. Minor, the American ex-soldier turned murderer (about whom Winchester has written an entire book, The Professor and the Madman). All of this shows that more goes into the making of a dictionary than you might think.

Simon Winchester is a skilled storyteller with an academic style. He frequently seems to try to cram as much into one sentence as he can, using all the cool punctuation that he can. He also seems to have a special liking for the word "polymathic." If you know what that means (I didn't), then you probably won't have a problem with his style.

If you are interested at all in our fascinating and crazy language that is English, you ought to read this book that tells the story of the language's most authoritative dictionary. A dictionary may seem like a thing of the past to many people, but where would we be without one? I only hope I'll be able to see the third edition of the OED, which, last time I heard, is slated to come out in 2037. My hat goes off to dictionary-makers everywhere.