The Meaning of Everything, Simon
Winchester (Oxford University Press, 2003)
If you love words, history, travel, people, or have ever wondered how a dictionary
is made, this book is a wonderful read. Simon Winchester is well known for his best
seller, The Professor and the Madman, a fascinating tale of madness and genius, and
the incredible obsessions of two unusual men who contributed so much to the making of the Oxford
English Dictionary (OED). The Meaning of Everything is a much broader and
complete story of the 71 years it took to complete the OED, though equally fascinating.
The book begins with a brief history of the English language, a chapter that alone
justifies reading the book. The origin of words and how meanings and spellings have
changed is a lesson in history and geography and social anthropology, all in one. The
contributions of the various settlers and sometimes conquerors of the British Isles is
mind-boggling, not to mention the impact of travel and technology. English has no single
origin, no pure form, and it changes incessantly, more than any other language on the
planet. No wonder that immigrants have always found it difficult, despite the familiarity
of a certain few words from their own language. Learn Latin and you’ll find that
Italian and Spanish are not so far removed. But what do you study as a prelude to English?
Don’t even try.
And how does one assemble a dictionary? Who actually does it? Who pays for it and
who will publish it? Who will buy it? The answers vary, depending on whose dictionary you
mean. There were dozens of dictionaries produced in England alone before the OED and
Winchester discusses their pros and cons. But mostly this book is about the unusual and
fascinating people who persevered in producing what is today considered the greatest
dictionary of the English language, The Oxford English Dictionary.
The sources of words for any dictionary, of course, are primarily other
dictionaries, letters, conversations and literature, including newspapers, novels and even
scientific journals. But who would undertake the Herculean task of gathering and reading
ALL of this material in order to produce a truly COMPLETE dictionary of English? Inspired
members of the Philological Society (philology; the love of learning or words) in 1857
England, who else! With the help of thousands of volunteers from around the world, but
mostly from the English speaking countries of the British Isles, Australia, Canada and the
United States.
A standard method of submitting words was adopted and a small staff, mostly
volunteers and the rest poorly paid, working in what was described as a glorified shed,
began the grueling task of sorting and cross-checking and organizing the submissions, one
word per card. These were filed in a system of pigeonholes, which continued to grow and
evolve as the project stretched from the original estimate of ten years to over seventy
years. Many of the volunteers and staff did not live to see the fruition of their efforts.
Along the way, efforts to find a publisher willing to fund the printing and fights with
editors who wanted to trim back the project continued, complicated by the expected
professional jealousies and political infighting to be found among University board
members and their advisors.
Even before its completion, the dictionary began to be published serially, over a
period of years, until its completion in 1928. Can you imagine people dashing to the
nearest newsstand when it was announced that the next volume, a slim 64-page paperback,
perhaps containing the words from whiskey to willfulness was now available?
They did--and this was one way the publishers of the past were able to fund more than a
few works, including fiction. The completed dictionary contained over 400,000 words and
nearly two million illustrative quotations. The first bound edition was twelve volumes;
any fewer would have made the volumes too bulky.
Would you like a copy? You can purchase the twenty volume, 20,000 page dictionary of
2.5 million quotations illustrating over half a million words for just $895, a special 75th
anniversary price (list price $3000). You might actually be tempted--after reading
Winchester’s book.