THE MEANING OF EVERYTHING…

Or, a little book about a great big book and some very, very, very  odd men…

What-ho!, word-watchers…

Just like you, I love words. (You’ve already come up with a stonkingly fine list of suggestions on our previous blog). I once, in fact, applied for the post of Bexley Executive Lexicologist (flexi), and I greatly admire people who are good with words…






So it was with particular pleasure, nay anhauncement, not to mention laudification that I recently perused this wonderful little book The Meaning of Everything; the story of the Oxford English Dictionary by that splendidly erudite author chappie Simon Winchester …






Not only did it contain a veritable cornucopia of bootylicious words (mawashi, naufragous, ulvose…) but it also told the story of the eccentric lexicographers who compiled it:






• James Murray, the brilliant and superbly bearded patriarch and founding father of he OED, who kept his hat on at all times…(That's him, on the book cover) 


• Fitzedward Hall, the adventurous American linguistic perfectionist who – after an argument over a single word - became a disillusioned hermit…


• Henry Bradley, the genius who became fluent in Russian in just a fortnight, and had the unusual ability of being able to read upside down…


• William C Minor, the polymath ‘lunatic murderer’ who did unspeakable things to himself, and others…


• Frederick James Furnivall, who loved words, vigorous rowing on the Thames and the company of `healthy strong ladies` (although not necessarily in that order)…


• The sumptuously named Hereward Thimbleby Price, born in Madagascar, conscripted into the German army, imprisoned by the Bolsheviks and feted in China…


• The aristocratic Henry Hucks Gibbs, whose family fortunes were founded on the Peruvian guano trade, and who so loved hunting and shooting that he shot off his own right hand...


• And Arthur Munby, who employed a chimney sweep to work without (ahem) the benefit of clothing…






The compilation of the OED was a herculean task – seventy years in the making, 15,490 pages; in every way, it was “big, fat, heavy, shelf-bendingly huge”. Yet here, in Winchester’s little book (260 pages, perusable in a couple of days) you can read all about it, and more…






Above all, the enjoyment in this book came from the characters who created
the OED: mildly eccentric, dedicated to their love of the printed word, and driven to create an unrivalled product, they remind me – in some ways – of certain colleagues in the library profession: (except, of course, that we no longer employ chimney sweeps au naturelle…)






Enjoy! I did.






TTFN