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Written for college students as an introduction to library subscription databases and online research. Storage space. Paper and electronic dictionaries. Originally published as a webpage on my college course website.
Originaltitel
Introduction to the OED (Oxford English Dictionary)
Written for college students as an introduction to library subscription databases and online research. Storage space. Paper and electronic dictionaries. Originally published as a webpage on my college course website.
Copyright:
Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
Verfügbare Formate
Als PDF herunterladen oder online auf Scribd lesen
Written for college students as an introduction to library subscription databases and online research. Storage space. Paper and electronic dictionaries. Originally published as a webpage on my college course website.
Copyright:
Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
Verfügbare Formate
Als PDF herunterladen oder online auf Scribd lesen
Introduction to the OED (Oxford English Dictionary)
by Gwen Williams January 2000
One of my graduate school friends possessed what is known as the
condensed or compact version of the OED, which is essentially the OED in miniature typeset. The condensed version text is so tiny that the OED comes with its own magnifying glass. An official attached-by-a-chain magnifying glass. At $350 for the condensed OED, I wondered how my friend managed to scrape together the money to buy one. Of course we all had student loans, part-time restaurant work, and Ramen Noodles in the cupboards. Turned out he found it at a garage sale. He paid $50 for all but one volume. I think ph-po was missing from the set. I couldn’t believe it. The OED––for 50 bucks. I was jealous. Intensely so. Not of his tee-shirts, which looked like they came from the same garage sale, but of his good fortune. Throughout graduate school, I dreamed he’d grow tired of possessing it and out of the goodness of his heart, bestow it to me. 1 Never happened. Ever since, I’ve wanted to own the OED. I even went so far as to price the full volume, full-sized set. When the Barnes & Noble employee gave me the price over the phone, she gasped and declared that a decimal place must have been off (it wasn’t). Yes, it is the price of 2400 packages of Ramen Noodles. 2 In addition to the issue of an exorbitant price tag for the full volume set, there was (and is) the issue of storage space. Thirty hardbound volumes would have required not only another bookcase in my apartment, but also another wall space in the apartment that didn’t (and still doesn’t) exist. Two summers ago my fascination with the OED increased when I spied a paperback at a bookstore titled, The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary. I thought, Murder? Insanity? and the Dictionary? The back cover blurb read, The Professor and the Madman, masterfully researched and eloquently written, is an extraordinary tale of madness, genius, and the incredible obsessions of two remarkable men that led to the making of the Oxford English Dictionary––and literary history. The compilation of the OED, begun in 1857, was one of the most ambitious projects ever undertaken. As definitions were collected, the overseeing committee, led by Professor James Murray, discovered that one man, Dr. W.C. Minor, had submitted more than ten thousand. One man submitted more than ten thousand definitions to the dictionary. Imagine ten thousand dictionary definitions. Imagine ten thousand of anything. If writing a ten thousand word prose piece is an achievement, then what is writing ten thousand––more than ten thousand––dictionary definitions? That’s some serious serious etymologizing. I was astounded. When I read the next sentence in the back cover blurb, “When the committee insisted on honoring him, a shocking truth came to light: Dr. Minor, an American Civil War veteran, was also an inmate at an asylum for the criminally insane,” I was hooked. Of course I bought it. Bookstore managers clap their hands with joy when they see a customer like me walk through the door. At $13.00 plus tax, I figured even if I couldn’t purchase The Book, I could at least own a book about its history. And for any bibliophile, the book is a delightful read, full of anecdotes and facts such as, “the total length of type [for the first edition]–– all hand-set. . .is 178 miles, the distance between London and the outskirts of Manchester,” which roughly corresponds to the distance between Bloomington-Normal and St.Louis.3 Winchester’s book also includes excerpts of Murray and Minor’s letters and quotes from the 19th century tabloids (about the murder, the murderer, the ‘call for words’). Readers also learn bhang, brick-tea, brinjal, catamaran, cholera, delicately, directly, dirt, disquiet, drink, duty, and dye were among Dr. W.C. Minor’s favorite words.4 It was then I became certain that someday I must figure out a way to purchase that OED. Perhaps eat 2400 packages of. . . and 2000 cans of . . .5 I could perhaps swing an egg for breakfast. . . In the midst of all those calculations (and I’m still calculating), I discovered a few years ago that Milner Library had subscribed to the online version of the OED. That treasure trove of histories and meanings of even the most obscure of words (such as frisson) was available to me––for the best price around: $0.00! Reading the format––digitalized text streaming through fiber optic cables and readable through a GUI––is different than perusing the onionskin pages of a leather bound book. And I can’t cart my Mac around the apartment, never mind out to the mailbox nor to the convenience store around the corner, but the purpose is the same: an etymological encounter. 1 In addition to brashly, and shamelessly, asking him to just give the OED to me, I also repeatedly said things like, “Isn’t that a strain on your eyes,” “Don’t you think you’ll go blind reading that small print,” and “I’ll take that garage sale trash off your hands, if you want--doesn’t even have ph-po.” 2 At 50¢ per package. Or 2000 cans of Campbell’s Tomato Soup--at 60¢ per can. 3Simon Winchester, The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary (New York: HarperCollins, 1999), 220. 4 Ibid, 159. 5Which calculates into 6.027 years worth of lunches and dinners--provided I wouldn’t get greedy and “double-up.”
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