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102 reviews for:
The Meaning of Everything: The Story of the Oxford English Dictionary
Simon Winchester
3.78 AVERAGE
102 reviews for:
The Meaning of Everything: The Story of the Oxford English Dictionary
Simon Winchester
3.78 AVERAGE
While it appears that the networks of the Web have lead to revolutionary progressions of information sharing, we must recognize the contributions of people who have been a part of endeavors without the current technologies. Winchester traces the long history of Oxford English Dictionary and the contributive efforts of volunteer readers in The Meaning of Everything. Without monetary gains, volunteers sent in their slips of illustrative uses of words to the Scriptorium. Here was a network, though inhibited by the slow pace at the time of publishing and the post, which succeeded because most involved, shared a desire to contribute.
I wasn't sure I'd dig this at first. Early tones are a bit...fawning and elitist. But it smoothed out and I did enjoy all the fantastic words within, as well as the history of the OED
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This book was equal part entertaining and intelligent while still being an easy summer read. While it purports to be a history of the OED, Simon Winchester spends most of the book focused on the legendary James Murray and glosses over most of the OED's tale once it hits the 20th century, demoting it to the epilogue. Happily, the years when Sir James served as editor of the OED are its truly formative years so the focus is, I suppose, warranted. As Winchester puts it when writing about a review of an early volume of the OED, it "managed to be admiring and yet neither slavish nor sycophantic in its admiration." Winchester accomplishes the same thing, obviously enamored of his subject but not to the point of gushing.
Although I don't normally read books of history, this was engaging enough to keep me reading. The story of the OED is an interesting one filled with not so boring or milquetoast people as one might expect.
It was really interesting to learn about the process by which the OED was constructed. I'd never really given it a lot of thought, but my hazy suppositions would not have been even close to the actual method.