Simon Winchester has done a great job of drawing out the human stories behind the compilation of the Oxford English Dictionary: the problems getting the project of the ground, the personal feuds, the huge amount of effort involved in keeping it going and in bringing it to completion.

There's plenty of humour in the book and a sizeable scattering of interesting lexicographical titbits from the work itself. A fascinating, accessible read. ( )

Read this for library school. Actually enjoyed it. ( )

After doing nigh on 400 of these LibraryThing reviews (I’m gunning for you, bluetyson!), I’m starting to recognize a few of the warning signs that a book is gonna be silly tripe. “Named a Notable Book of the Year by the New York Times”, unfortunately, is one (what is up with these people and the books they make bestsellers? Why can’t they just stick to TV?). Being about language and written by a non-academic, twice as unfortunately, is another (Mark Liberman is right:linguists are doing a bad, bad job inculcating a basic knowledge of the discipline in the general public, similar to what they have in chemistry, for example, and we need a required course in linguistics at the high school level, or popular books about language are going to remain the province of bullshit merchants like Bill Bryson).

But the most telling sign of all comes when I start reading and folding over pages—as I do—when I find something notable, whether it’s a beautiful passage or a pithy epigraph or something that I expect to be of use in my research or something that’s just silly and laughable. As the pages fold, a good/evil ratio starts to emerge, and most books find themselves firmly on one side of it. Simon Winchester’s The Meaning of Everything: The Story of the Oxford English Dictionary chooses the wrong side.

It’s, well, “criminal” is a strong word, but surely at least a misdemeanor or venial sin to have a story as full of intrinsic interest as this one fall into your lap and make such a sow’s ear out of it. Winchester comes off both stupid and repulsive, with his pandering and sniggering and constant dweebish insistence on embracing a sort of cod-version of the idiom and attitudes of the era about which he is writing. (In addition to my main tags, which note the date I finish reading a book, I have started including secondary tags when books fall into what I once dubbed “serial autoecholalia”, when an author obviously, partway through writing a work, suddenly remembered or learned a particular word existed, was taken with it, and proceeds to throw it in willy-nilly for a while, before getting bored or embarrassed and letting it drop again. In this book that word is “martinet”. Everyone’s a “martinet” as long as they disagree with James Murray (the august editor of the early OED), and then we get to see how they were just grumpy or whatever and still have inner humanity when they get over themselves and come in on the side of manifest lexicographical destiny.) It’s all, and this isn’t a real quote, “Mr. Dickon Hulme, Esq., of Thistlebottom Lane, North Glumwich, contributed definitions of numerous words concerned with the Orient, whose mysteries he had penetrated during his sojourn in Kashmir with the 21st Coldpuddle Rifles.” You can’t fool us, Simon Winchester. Books have publication dates, right inside the front cover for everyone to see. AND YOURS IS 2003.

You get the idea—the epic tale of the greatest book ever, mostly ruined by Winchester’s dumbdowningness and creepy Victorianophilia (if he doesn’t vote BNP, it’s because he’ll die a Tory like his dear old dad, and if he does, it’s because Cameron will bend over for the Europeans and blackfellows. That’s actually way harsh, and I disavow it immediately after having said it, but it’s the feeling you get.) There are great moments, like learning that South Africa had its own equivalent of the Academie Francaise (it would) or just how many of the OED’s contributors were in asylums or jail (all of ‘em!), but they’re just a little bit too compromised by weird Colonel Blimp moves, fetishization of English as qualitatively superior to other languages, total lack (as the fetishization thing perhaps implies) of linguistic knowledge, total lack of respect for his audience, and all-around assiness. ( )

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. ( )

This is the second book by Winchester I've read, and I like it. Perhaps because I love the OED and reference books of any stripe, even though the internet, particularly Google and Wikipedia, have made them obsolete. Like Winchester's Map that Changed the World, the underlying work is here in full force, but there is a big focus on politics and culture. Thus, you learn a great deal about lexicography, etymology, and the like, but you also get into a morass of Victorian politics. You do get the feeling, though, that the OED reflects the Victorian society it was made in.

A few peeves: Winchester uses the word "muscularly" too many times. And, he bends over backwards to bemoan and bewail the fact that very few women worked on the project way back yonder. You don't need to mention it every chapter or so, shoehorning it in to remind the beautiful people just how backwards your mighty forefathers were.

Except mentioning that Cursor Mundi provided the most quotations, he doesn't delve into where the readers got other quotes, like the Bible, Shakespeare, etc. I would have found that interesting as well. ( )