Joey S. (Joey) reviewed on 9/2/2005 + 404 more book reviews

Helpful Score: 1

This is one of my favorite books of the year.
It is a fascinating study of compiling and writing the great Oxford English Dictionary, the first full dictionary of the English language.
It took 70 years, and very few partial dictionaries existed at the time it was begun, mid 1800s.
As one amazon review states:
paints a rich portrait of the OED's leading light, Professor James Murray, who spent more than 40 years of his life on a project he would not see completed in his lifetime. Winchester traces the origins of the drive to create a "Big Dictionary" down through Murray and far back into the past; the result is a fascinating compact history of the English language (albeit admittedly more interesting to linguistics enthusiasts than historians or true crime buffs).

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