Author(s): Sarah Ogilvie

Bibliophilia | Language & Dictionaries | History

What do three murderers, Karl Marx's daughter and a vegetarian vicar have in common? They all helped create the Oxford English Dictionary.

The Oxford English Dictionary has long been associated with elite institutions and Victorian men; its longest-serving editor, James Murray, devoted 36 years to the project, as far as the letter T. But the Dictionary didn't just belong to the experts; it relied on contributions from members of the public.

By the time it was finished in 1928 its 414,825 entries had been crowdsourced from a surprising and diverse group of people, from archaeologists and astronomers to murderers, naturists, novelists, pornographers, queer couples, suffragists, vicars and vegetarians.

Lexicographer Sarah Ogilvie dives deep into previously untapped archives to tell a people's history of the OED. She traces the lives of thousands of contributors who defined the English language, from the eccentric autodidacts to the family groups who made word-collection their passion.

With generosity and brio, Ogilvie reveals, for the first time, the full story of the making of one of the most famous books in the world - and celebrates to sparkling effect the extraordinary efforts of the Dictionary People.

Schrödinger's Books' Review:

What do three murderers, a collector of pornography and a vegetarian vicar have in common? Answer: they all helped create the Oxford English Dictionary.

You may have read The Surgeon of Crowthorne by Simon Winchester or The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams - if so then you will love this book.

The creation of the OED was a huge crowdsourcing project that ran from 1858-1928 where members of the public contributed quotations from books they read that gave a sense of the meaning of a word. The author, who worked as a lexicographer for the OED, stumbled upon editor James Murray’s address books which recorded the names, addresses, details of books read and contributions from the thousands of volunteers. She has uncovered some entertaining stories about the lives of the eccentric, exuberant and just plain ordinary people that worked on and contributed to the dictionary.

The chapters are titled A to Z (of course) so we get C for Cannibal, L for Lunatic, S for Suffragists and there is even N for New Zealanders! You needn’t be a word nerd or collector of quirky facts to enjoy this book, but did you know that ophiolaters are people who worship snakes?

- Catherine Clarke