The Meaning of Everything: The Story of the Oxford English Dictionary (Paperback)

"The Professor and the Madman," Winchester's first best-seller, was the story of Dr. W.C. Minor, an American who had gone to England in what was a vain hope of regaining his sanity. Instead, he committed a senseless murder, and was imprisoned in an asylum for life. Minor found redemption in his otherwise ruined life by devoting decades of service as a volunteer reader/researcher for the OED.

In his introduction to this volume, Winchester explains that an editor at the Oxford University Press suggested that since he had written a footnote to the story of the great enterprise, he might want to undertake the main story. Fortunately for us, he took up the suggestion with enthusiasm.

The pace of the narrative never falters in its entire 250 pages. The opening chapter provides a brief overview of the evolution of English and of previous efforts to compile a truly comprehensive dictionary of the language--and why all fell short of that lofty goal.

What became the OED enterprise had its origins in the late 1850s, but the first completed dictionary pages did not see the light of day until the early 1880s. Why the project was almost stillborn, how it survived deaths, disorganization, lack of funds and innumerable other setbacks--all of this is brought vividly to life in Winchester's tale. Even when the great editor James Murray took the helm and the project finally emerged from chaos, it still faced obstaces, especially from those who would have sacraficed quality in order to produce a swifter, but less authoratative, final product.

Today, the third edition of the OED is in preparation by a staff working in modern offices, making use of all the tools of twenty-first century information technology. The contrast to the conditions facing makers of the original OED, laboring by hand, sorting tens of thousands of slips of paper into pigenhole slots in an ugly, dank corrugated tin shed (grandly named the "Scriptorium" by Murray) is startling, and makes their achievement all the more amazing--and grand.

Dr. Minor makes a brief appearance in the story, along with some of the other unusual and exemplary volunteer contributors from around the world who combed nearly 800 years of English literature to give the OED its impressive depth. While none of the other's stories may be quite as extreme as Minor's, it's clear that for many, their involvement in this great cause (with no pay and little recognition) also gave depth and meaning to their lives.

It's the vivid, human qualities that Winchester illuminates so well make this a great story...one that you won't want to miss.

Winchester gives a fine brief guide to the history of our language, and shows that by the Victorian age, philologists felt a comprehensive dictionary was needed. In 1842, the Philological Society settled on a proposal of a gargantuan dictionary, one that would have old words and new, one that would have every word and every meaning for that word. There was certainly something of power in such a scheme; great men and great ambitions would push the influence of English throughout the Empire, nay, the world, and increase the influence of Britain and her church. The story of the _OED_ is inextricably the story of the chief editor for the original edition, James Augustus Henry Murray. He was the son of a Scottish linen draper, and after a rural upbringing, he had to leave school at 14 because of poverty. However, by that time, he had developed precocious interests in geology, astronomy, archeology, and plenty of other fields, especially languages. He became a teacher at a boys' school in London, but in 1879, he was appointed editor of the dictionary project. Murray was not just a lexicographic and organizational genius, however, but a cheerful and persistent diplomat, who was adept at dealing with difficult personalities and making friends with those who were originally nuisances. He was also a family man whose very happy marriage produced eleven remarkable children. The children never had pocket money but by earning it in sorting dictionary slips. One wrote, "Hours & hours of our childhood were spent in this useful occupation. The motive actuating us was purely mercenary." One unforeseen result of this upbringing is that when the crossword puzzle craze came on, all the Murray children were brilliant at them.

Murray himself died in 1905 and did not live to see the completion of the work in 1928 (there was a supplement in 1933 for all the new words that had been put in use since the start). But he knew himself that there would really be no completion of the work any more than the language itself would be complete. A dictionary is a snapshot of current language, a verbal description that rapidly goes out of date. There has been a second edition, and a web-based version, and a Revised Edition is being worked on, which will possibly weigh a sixth of a ton and comprise forty volumes. Perhaps, though it will appear in only an electronic form. But Murray's basic plan for the dictionary was so good that the plan has remained intact, and the book will continue reflect the growth of our language. The _OED_ is still looking for volunteer readers, to make slips for new words and also to try to find previous usages for words already in. For instance, according to the _OED_'s last bulletin, if you can find a source for the phrase "pick up steam" (that is, to accelerate) from before 1944, the editors want to hear from you.

The Meaning of Everything, by Simon Winchester, is a detailed account of the making of the OED, and the reader is entitled to a full range of the most interesting narrative concerning the idiosincratic personalities of each and every successive editor of the dictionary, specially of the legendary Scottsman James Murray, with whom the dictionary is most commonly associated, due to the maturity of purpose the project acqurired in his experienced hands. By the way, Murray was a polymath, a man grown up in poverty but with a keen curiosity and many different interests and who spoke/read more than 25 languages. The many photographs of him and of the many editors are a good add-on to the book.

The expert author guides the reader trough the intrincacies of the project, beginning with a very adequate explanation of the origins of the English language, as viewed from Victorian Britain, and its evolution trough the maze of influences the language received from Old English, Old German, French and Latin. A good portrait of what was the idea at the time concerning what a good dictionary should have is also given, thus permitting the reader to have a balanced judgement of the task to be performed.

To sum it up, The Meaning of Everything is a good book to everyone interested in the origin of languages and in interesting bios of many very special men. I hope you enjoy it as I did.