Reddit reviews The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary

I recently finished a book about that! The Professor and the Madman covers the lives of William Minor (the madman) and James Murray (the professor) while also providing an interesting look at the creation of the OED itself. It's about two hundred pages and flows by pretty quickly. Worth a read.

Anyone interested in this topic should read Simon Winchester's The Meaning of Everything. He's also written a book called The Professor and the Madman about the relationship between the OED's editor and W.C. Minor, a prolific submitter that was actually imprisoned in a psychiatric ward because of a brutal murder.

I honestly can't answer your question thoroughly, but I do recommend this book, The Professor and the Madman, which is about the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary. It speaks of other attempts, but none quite as ambitious as the OED. Other languages, French for example, had already been done fairly thorough. The book explains the attempt to both standardize the english language(like spelling and definition) but also find the earliest uses of the word and trace its use over time. The project is probably the greatest experiment in the idea of crowd-sourcing ever over a century before the computer existed. So many anonymous lexicographers and philologists( both words I learned by reading the book) came together out of a collective and noble goal to accomplish such an immense feat. I loved it.

Guessing you mean sanskrit, yeah? I see what you're getting at, but the evolution of language is not really a good example of how we store data. For example, "and eventually English" doesn't make any more sense than "and eventually Sanskrit". They are just languages. The advent of writing (starting with Cuneiform) was definitely a breakthrough, but the next step would not be a new language, it would be an improvement to storage or production or method. Like the printing press, which allowed more people access to data of all kinds. Or the dictionary, which allowed for standardization of terms. (By the way, you may enjoy a book called The Professor and the Madman about the craziness surrounding the OED.)

Best answer. Related: there's a great book about the creation of the OED, The Professor and the Madman.

I don't know the article, but The Professor and the Madman is a fantastic book about it.

The Professor and the Madman
http://www.amazon.com/Professor-Madman-Insanity-English-Dictionary/dp/0060839783/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1398450830&sr=1-1&keywords=the+professor+and+the+madman
The Man who Mistook His Wife for a Hat
http://www.amazon.com/Man-Who-Mistook-His-Wife/dp/0684853949/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1398450891&sr=1-1&keywords=the+man+who+mistook+his+wife+for+a+hat

He wants to be a linguist--I think he would also enjoy the etymologies in the Oxford English Dictionary. I suggest taking him to a public library and sitting him down with a copy of the OED and going through a few definitions (penetrate would be a good start).

You've definitely got a linguist on your hands--if he also gets interested in computers and/or programming, he will have a lot of jobs waiting for him after he gets through college.

Please PM me if you want more help/advice.

Edit: He might enjoy these books:

http://www.amazon.com/History-English-Language-6th-Edition/dp/0205229395/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1377654532&sr=8-2&keywords=english+a+history

http://www.amazon.com/Linguistics-A-Very-Short-Introduction/dp/0192801481/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1377654559&sr=8-1&keywords=very+brief+introduction+linguistics

http://www.amazon.com/Professor-Madman-Insanity-English-Dictionary/dp/0060839783/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1377654605&sr=1-1&keywords=the+madman+and+the+professor

There are two ways to make dictionaries. The older and most common way was to copy what people have done before and make emendations based on one's interpretations of textual evidence. For example, a dictionary released in the 19th century and still often used by scholars of medieval Latin, commonly referred to by the names of its editors as "Lewis and Short", is a translation and revision of a Latin dictionary produced by a German scholar. This is how European lexicography worked until the very ambitious project of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), which appeared in a large number of slim volumes (or "fascicles") over the course of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This dictionary was made the other way, namely, completely anew, from a massive compilation of textual evidence. The OED worked by cataloguing enormous quantities of "slips", pieces of paper with a lemma (word to be defined), proposed meaning, and a quotation to illustrate this meaning. These slips were mailed in to the editorial office by thousands of volunteers, which could be anyone at all who wanted to contribute. Lexicographers then sorted through the quotations to devise an order for the definitions which they thought reflected the semantic evolution of the word. The OED was unique in its time for its ambitious scope, its method of arranging definitions, and its cataloguing of all the quotations used in it. Nowadays, slips are often replaced by electronic databases. And dictionaries of the contemporary forms of a language like the Oxford Dictionary of English (not to be confused with the Oxford English Dictionary, which is a historical dictionary of English from late Old English to the present day) use collections of both spoken and written language from very diverse contexts called "corpora" (singular form "corpus") as their sources. The result of this transformation in the methods of lexicography is that, where the glossaries of an earlier age were often produced by single authors or small groups of authors over a few years or decades, modern dictionaries of living languages require large editorial staffs and constant revision to keep them up to date. The second edition of the full-length OED was completed in 1989, for instance. The third edition is too incomplete for the editorial staff to want to give a release date, but some sources estimate it will be finished in 2037.

James Murray, the main editor of the first edition of the OED, has an interesting lecture called The Evolution of English Lexicography, which traces the roots of English lexicography from Latin glossaries, accessible here. Edit: If you're interested in the early history of dictionaries, this is the link that's going to be most interesting to you.

K. M. Elisabeth Murray, James's granddaughter, wrote a fabulous book about her grandfather and the publication of the first edition of the OED called Caught in the Web of Words.

A popular recent book that reveals a fair bit about the OED's history in entertaining fashion is The Professor and the Madman.

Some interesting info about the system of slips can be found at this website for Cambridge University's attempt to (finally!) produce a dictionary of Ancient Greek based on modern lexicographic principles.

On corpora, see this web page for the corpus on which the contemporary Oxford Dictionary of English is based.

That's some of the more significant stuff from English lexicography. If you're interested, I can probably dig out some articles on Latin lexicography from the middle ages/renaissance, but basically, the way it worked was that people made glossaries of words that were often arranged by subject rather than alphabetically. Such glossaries, unlike modern dictionaries, did not typically contain the very common or easy words (e.g., "eat" in English) that take up so much space in modern dictionaries. These glossaries usually only gave one-word equivalents rather than definitions, or simply listed words on a common subject together, so that you might have a glossary page for "the calendar" and find words for "week", "month", "Monday", "Tuesday", "June", "July", etc. together, or you might have a section on words for parts of the human body, or words for kinds of food. Alphabetical order only emerged over time. Another point of note is that most Latin texts were elaborately annotated in medieval/renaissance editions (why, check out Vergil's Aeneid with Servius's commentary even in something as late as this early modern edition), so one was as if not more likely to look for the meaning of an obscure word in the commentary, at least as a first point of reference, than in a separate glossary.

Some edits for clarity. I know this post focussed a lot on modern lexicography, but I hope you'll find what I've written of interest for your question.

Read The Professor and the Madman, wonderful account of the writing of Oxford.

Many, many entries completed by a schizophrenic who thought the Irish were out to get him.

I can't give a good explanation myself, but The Professor and the Madman, which I read not too long ago, gives quite a bit of insight to that question.

Dava Sobel writes about science in history, and she's fantastic. Longitude, in particular was great!

I also really like Simon Winchester's The Professor and the Madman about the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary

Been reading The Professor and the Madman?

You reminded me of the story of William Minor, the American army surgeon who was one of the largest contributors of quotations to the Oxford English Dictionary.

It was many years before OED's editor, Dr. James Murray, learned Minor's background and that he'd been found not guilty of murder and declared clinically insanity. Minor had been a patient at Broadmoor Asylum for many years.

Minor's condition deteriorated and in 1902 he cut off his own penis.

You can read about the book here: The Professor and the Madman

The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary
Prior to reading, it never even occurred to me how difficult it must have been to compile the dictionary.

Apologies if these have been posted already, but I'd highly recommend Simon Winchester's work, particularly The Professor and the Madmad and Krakatoa.

Well researched, well written and thoroughly enjoyable.

Cool! Birthderp present from my Mom. Have your read these? I think they are great:

The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary

http://www.amazon.com/Professor-Madman-Insanity-English-Dictionary/dp/0060839783/ref=sr_1_8?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1290970608&sr=1-8

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

http://www.amazon.com/Meaning-Everything-Oxford-English-Dictionary/dp/019517500X/ref=sr_1_10?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1290970608&sr=1-10

Thought you might like this book I read once, about the making of the Oxford English Dictionary...

http://www.amazon.com/Professor-Madman-Insanity-English-Dictionary/dp/0060839783/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1454012004&sr=1-1&keywords=the+professor+and+madman

Have a great day!

My favorite book in a long time which I'm currently reading is A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson. It doesn't have much to do with anything but it keeps me entertained. Definitely check it out.

Second favorite is A Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams. Both are rather obscure of meaning but have a fun precedence (this possibly more comical than the other)

If you are looking for a semi-serious book I recommend The Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester. It does have to do with an ex-military doctor but it is hardly the focus of the book. It follows the creation of the Oxford American Dictionary, but it isn't quite what you'd expect. I don't believe I could give you in depth analysis for any of these nor if you'd like them. They are my favorite books (minus Calvin and Hobbs) and are worth a read.

Simon Winchester is really good. I enjoyed Krakatoa and The Professor and the Madman.

Added reading suggestions

Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies 1st Edition
by Jared M. Diamond

The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary Paperback – Jul 5 2005
by Simon Winchester (Author)

I enjoyed the book, penis-lopping or not.
The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary (P.S.) by Simon Winchester http://www.amazon.com/dp/0060839783/ref=cm_sw_r_udp_awd_2x2qtb18CP20J

A random selection of non-fiction recommendations for /u/MindOfMetalAndWheels:

• A Crack in Creation, by Jennifer Doudna
  
• Debt: The First 5000 Years, by David Graeber
  
• One Good Turn, by Witold Rybczynski
  
• The Drunkard's Walk, by Leonard Mlodinow
  
• The Professor and the Madman, by Simon Winchester
  
• The Secret Lives of Colour, by Kassia St Clair
  
• The Storm Before the Storm, by Mike Duncan
  
• Gentlemen's Blood, by Barbara Holland

The "Oxford English Dictionary"

the story of its creation is a pretty good read, too.