Words

[Heather]

I've just finished reading an interesting book on the compiling of the New English Oxford Dictionary. The Surgeon of Crowthorne by Simon Winchester.

The dictionary was an incredible effort that took 70 years to complete and included the meanings, quotes and earliest usages of words in 12 massive volumes. One of the contributors - Dr. William Minor was deemed insane after murdering a man and was incarcerated in an institution for 38 years. During 20 of those years he read copious numbers of books and contributed words and quotes to the dictionary.

The previous best known dictionary was that of Samuel Johnson in the 1700s. There was discussion at the time about "fixing" the language- establishing the limits of language. Jonathan Swift once wrote to the Earl of Oxford to express his outrage that words like bamboozle, uppish and couldn't were appearing in print. He thought such words were offensive to good taste and should be banned from use! One wonders what Swift would think of the words included in modern dictionaries!

[Heather]

The dictionary was finished in 1927 and supplements were produced in 1933, and four others between 1972 and 1986.

The original dictionary was compiled using existing words by reading books so the problem of words evolving probably wasn't an issue at the time Marty. Volunteers had to actually read a book, take down the words they thought interesting and take quotes from the books to support the meaning and usage. These were all written on slips of paper and sent to the collators. Only one word (already in Johnson's dictionary) was missed - bondmaid - the slip of paper must have been mislaid and was found after the volume had been printed.

It's an interesting and easy read and made more interesting by the inclusion of the story of Dr. William Minor.

[Neville Briggs]

I know that episode Marty. After Dr Johnson says he has compiled a list of ALL the words in the English language, Black Adder throws up obviously concocted words like disconbobulated and interfragilistically so poor old Dr Johnson gets all flustered at the hitherto unknown words.

There is a story about Dr Johnson and how his wife discovered him caressing the maid. Dr Johnson's wife said " I am surprised ! ", Samuel said " No, I am surprised, you are astonished "

[Maureen K Clifford]

Oh I am Neville I am