frumiousb

The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary
Simon Winchester

Any such dictionary certainly should not be an absolutionist, autocratic product, such as the French had in mind: The English, who had raised eccentricity and poor organization to a high art, and placed the scatterprain on a pedestal, loathed such Middle European things as rules, conventions, and dictatorships. They abhorred the idea of diktats-- about the language, for Heaven's sake!-- emanating from some secretive body of unaccountable immortals. Yes, nodded a number of members of the Philological Society, as they gathered up their astrakhan-collared coats and white silk scarves and top hats that night and strolled out into the yellowish November fog: Dean Trench's notion of calling for volunteers was a good one, a worthy and really rather noble idea.
pg. 107

The first time that I had ever heard about the Oxford English Dictionary, I was a freshman at Bryn Mawr-- straight from the sticks. I had tested out of needing to take the freshman English classes, and had plunged straightaway into classes that were aimed at upper classmen. While eventually that turned out to be fine, my very first class was with a peach of a gentleman who clearly found me an unlettered barbarian who should have been sent back to the freshman comp classes-- or even worse. I was not only an unlettered barbarian, but a *stubborn* unlettered barbarian and we fought about absolutely everything. A little bit over midway through the semester, he marked me down on a paper because I used the word "meld". He scribbled in the margin: "Not a word!" Furious, I went to the library and came back with a popular dictionary and I held the entry for "meld" under his nose during his office hours. He icily slammed the book shut and glared at me. "If it is not in the Oxford English Dictionary," he said, "it is not a word!"

That began my lifelong love-hate relationship with the OED. At least with the idea of the OED. I've somehow never managed to acquire my own copy. (I keep telling B. that I'd love one for my birthday, but I'm pretty sure that he doesn't believe that I'm serious.) But still, The Professor and the Madman was kind of a natural for me. People have been recommending it to me ever since it appeared; I've had several offers to lend it to me (I don't borrow books); I've had it regularly suggested on Amazon. I finally picked up my own copy second-hand. And now, reader, I've finally read the book.

And-- honestly-- it's a little bit anticlimactic. Don't get me wrong, it's a nice book. It's one of these new breed of nonfiction books that read mostly like magazine articles writ large. Winchester delivers a very good magazine article writ large. It is surely entertaining, very interesting, decently written and a good story. What else could you want?

I would have *perhaps* wanted a little more about the history of the Dictionary and a little bit less about Minor. But this isn't a fair remark, as that was the subject of the book. But that would have added more substance, and if I have a criticism it is surely that the book is not very substantial.

Know someone who loves words? This is probably an excellent gift. It's unlikely to be controversial, and they will probably get a kick out of it. Do not expect too much, and you will not be disappointed.

(I really appreciated, by the way, that Winchester included a list of suggestions for further reading. I will definitely be following some of those up.)

*****

Added to my Wish List:

Doctors in Blue: The Medical History of the Union Army in the Civil War, George Worthington Adams
In Hospital And Camp: A Woman's Record Of Thrilling Incidents Among The Wounded In The Late War, Sophronia E. Bucklin
The Irish Brigade and Its Campaigns, Lawrence Kohl
The Golden Age, Kenneth Grahame
Dictionaries: The Art and Craft of Lexography, Landau
Caught in the Web of Words: James Murray and the Oxford English Dictionary, K.M. Elisabeth Murray
London: A Social History, Roy Porter
The Battle Of The Wilderness, May 5-6, 1864, Gordon C. Rhea