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

The Professor and the Madman tells the story of one contributor very well. I loved it at least

The writing of the dictionaries is an interesting time period in European history. There were several attempts at dictionaries during the 17th century, as well as several attempts at encyclopedias. This also coincides with the highly formal and stylized Baroque period in music, all of which reflected the culture of the time. There's a fascinating book on the creation of the Oxford Dictionary titled The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of The Oxford English Dictionary, and is a must read in my opinion. (As a side note Simon Winchester is fast becoming one of my favorite popular historians due to the breadth of subject material he writes about.)

The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of The Oxford English Dictionary was very interesting, if a little thin.

From the Amazon review, 'When the editors of the Oxford English Dictionary put out a call during the late 19th century pleading for "men of letters" to provide help with their mammoth undertaking, hundreds of responses came forth. Some helpers, like Dr. W.C. Minor, provided literally thousands of entries to the editors. But Minor, an American expatriate in England and a Civil War veteran, was actually a certified lunatic who turned in his dictionary entries from the Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum.'

While many will say that dictionaries have always been aggregates--and even the history of modern dictionaries are questionable--to simply say that language is fluid strikes me as both i) inconsiderate to its rich history and ii) an excuse for reckless abandon. That is, at least, for most people.

Sure, you'll get some strange regional abstractions like nonplus, but when you have words like Iregardless which serve no purpose--well, that's just stupid. If somebody like Oscar Wilde or E.E Cummings is employing wordplay that's on a different level than a sufficient number of people incorrectly using a word.

My issue with this isn't just diction. I'm actually quite forgiving on diction and spelling mistakes (as I make a tremendous amount of them). Words have a rich history; which means they have deep connotations. To imply all synonyms are interchangeable would be a great insult to the quality of language. I doubt anybody would make such an argument. So, on a certain scale, people acknowledge that words are more than majority-accepted diction (i.e. connotation).

So, as I implied earlier, certain people can shape language with the greatest of care and mastery. My argument extends to the impact things have on literature and maintaining a standard (whether it is to be used in the vernacular or not is not the point). So, when people say, "language is fluid", I am certainly not disagreeing that it is; I am, however, disagreeing that that is free license to not form it to mean whatever we would like.

If I felt people, by and large, were receiving stronger education given their unprecedented access to it (internet, not working in coal mines, etc)--perhaps, I would be more willing to say the masses should shape language. But, as anybody can tell you that has graded college papers in the past 10-years, emoticons are becoming more prevalent. Should we then accept these in formal writing? They are simply pictographs, no? Perhaps that person wrote that emoticon wishing to embeds it with profoundness of the entire volume of Ulysses? I certainly know what they meant to say--at least in the ball park thereof.

(That wasn't so much a refute as an elaboration. I'm not going to refute the claim "language is fluid" in and of itself. I will display my frustration at how it is used though.)

This probably is not what you are looking for, but it is an interesting read:
The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of The Oxford English Dictionary by Simon Winchester.

Chronicles the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary and the curious case of the most prolific contributor.

Simon Winchester's The Professor and the Madman

In the US, it's titled The Professor and the Madman. In the UK, it's titled The Surgeon of Crowthorne.

It's non-fiction, by the way.

I really enjoyed the Professor and the Madman: http://www.amazon.com/The-Professor-Madman-Insanity-Dictionary/dp/006099486X

The Professor and the Madman and The Meaning of Everything. Both are about the making of the Oxford English Dictionary, the latter about the actual making, and the former about the specifics of one of the most prolific contributors to the OED: a US Army officer and civil war vet in a British insane asylum. Great reads, the both of them.

If anyone is interested, the lexicographer that wound up in the insane asylum in Chapter 7, had a book written about him, that's pretty darn interesting.

...and where the fuck is Chaucer?

The Professor and The Madman

That's not the case at all. I relish being wrong, but I will defend against wrongness, which is what I'm doing here.

The definitions in the Oxford English Dictionary, as you should know, was in very large part created by a man in an insane asylum. Not that this lessens its value, but something to think about. Try Simon Winchester's book on the subject. It's a really good read.