The Meaning of Everything: The Story of the Oxford English Dictionary

Description

“We visit the ugly corrugated iron structure that Murray grandly dubbed the Scriptorium — the Scrippy or the Shed, as locals called it — and meet some of the legion of volunteers, from Fitzedward Hall, a bitter hermit obsessively devoted to the OED, to W.C. Minor, whose story is one of dangerous madness, ineluctable sadness, and ultimate redemption. The Meaning of Everything is a scintillating account of the creation of the greatest monument ever erected to a living language. Simon Winchester’s supple, vigorous prose illuminates this dauntingly ambitious project — a seventy-year odyssey to create the grandfather of all word-books, the world’s unrivaled uber-dictionary. Book jacket.”–Jacket.

• Author: Simon Winchester
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
• Published: 2004
• Pages: 294
• ISBN-13: 9780192805768