The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) is big and getting bigger! There are already definitions for over six hundred thousand English words, including derivative forms. Between eight hundred and one thousand neologisms are added each year — the words ‘hangry’ and ‘techlash’ give just a taste of the creative new additions from 2018. Today’s giant-size OED was started over 160 years ago with one crazy idea that could never work… except it did!
Recording change
In November 1857, a group of scholarly language nerds, known as the Philological Society, held a meeting in London. The topic for discussion that evening was the poor quality of English dictionaries. One of the society’s members, Dean Richard Chenevix Trench, presented a report entitled “On Some Deficiencies in our English Dictionaries”. According to Trench, there were serious problems with existing English dictionaries — inconsistencies and unforgivable gaps. In fact, he argued, the existing dictionaries were too problematic to be fixed. A more radical solution was required.
An ambitious proposal
Trench suggested creating a completely new dictionary that would record the English language in its totality. That meant not just making a comprehensive record of how English was used at that time, but also how it had been used over the centuries. The goal should be to record every single meaning that every single word in the English language had ever had. The new dictionary would also illustrate every sense (past and present) of every word, which meant including a complete record of obsolete words, too. In addition, every meaning of every word would be illustrated by an example found in a real written text, such as a book or magazine. It seemed like an impossibly ambitious proposal.
People power!
This is where the real genius of the idea came in; it was decided to use an early form of crowdsourcing to help collect the material for the dictionary. People from all over the English-speaking world, not just from the UK, but also from India, Australia, America, South Africa and beyond, would be asked to help with the project. Whenever these volunteers saw a word in a sentence that illustrated what that word meant, they would be asked to copy the quotation onto a piece of paper and send it by post to the dictionary team. From these quotations the editors would put together the new dictionary.
The finished product
The members of the Philological Society were tremendously inspired by the idea, and the process of collecting quotations and compiling the new dictionary began almost immediately, in 1858. It was originally published in fascicles between 1884 and 1928 under the name A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles; Founded Mainly on the Materials Collected by The Philological Society. Subsequently, the whole first edition was published in ten volumes and commonly known as the ‘Oxford English Dictionary’. It is considered to be the greatest dictionary of the English language ever created.
the meaning of everything
London-born Simon Winchester is a best-selling author who made his name as a journalist covering dramatic stories from across the world; reporting on current affairs from India to Northern Ireland, America to Afghanistan. He is also fascinated by the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) and has written two books on its history. The Professor and the Madman, which was made into a 2019 film starring Mel Gibson, tells the story of two remarkable men, James Murray, the dictionary’s editor from 1879 to 1915, and W.C. Minor, its most prolific and eccentric contributor. His second book, The Meaning of Everything, gives a more detailed history of the whole OED project.
An unlikely editor
In an interview with Speak Up, Winchester described some of the key moments and figures in the story of the OED. He began in 1879, when the Scotsman James Murray took over as editor. Although Murray wasn’t the first editor or the last — indeed he died in 1915 when the dictionary was only completed as far as the letter T —, he worked on the dictionary for three decades and shaped the project more than anyone else. Murray had a brilliant mind and a surprising background, as Winchester explained.
Simon Winchester (English accent): He was the son of a draper, someone who was pretty uneducated, he was self-educated. But he was fascinated by language and by the age of fifteen he could speak something like nine languages and by the time he became interested in [working for] the dictionary he could speak something like thirty, it was an incredible number of languages. He was very tall, big white beard, very severe… He was a schoolmaster and because he didn’t have university education they were very sceptical, the people who were organising this dictionary, of employing James Murray because he didn’t have these qualifications.
Analogue crowdsourcing
Eventually, the editorial team did decide to take a risk on Murray and for thirty years he managed the day-to-day work of compiling the OED. A team of about twelve employees, often helped by Murray’s many children, worked in an improvised building known as the Scriptorium in Murray’s garden. Winchester described the process of putting the dictionary together.
Simon Winchester: It’s an amazingly complicated process. Volunteers were asked whenever they saw a word in a book or a magazine or a pamphlet and the word was in a sentence that illustrated what that word meant, then they were asked to copy it out on a sheet of paper, or a slip of paper, of about 3 inches by 5 inches. They put the word at the top left — it’s called the ‘catchword —, and then the sentence that illustrated its meaning and then where that sentence appeared, in other words, the book, the page number, the date, the author and so forth. And they would send it in to 78 Banbury Road, Oxford, which was James Murray’s house, and indeed today the mailbox still exists outside that very house.
Inside the Scriptorium
Winchester then explained what happened to these slips of paper once they reached the Scriptorium.
Simon Winchester: And the workers in the Scriptorium, which was a corrugated iron hut built in the back garden at 78 Banbury Road, was where these slips, thousands of them were sorted alphabetically, chronologically, by subject, by type... Inside of the Scriptorium, you have the twelve or so workers who are their shirt sleeves, sorting out these slips of paper. And behind them, thousands upon thousands of pigeon-holes, where the slips are put in alphabetical order. So all the As, all the Bs, all the Cs, all the Ds... The number of slips was prodigious; I mean many millions of them. And to organise them and to check them — were they accurate, were they right, were they relevant, were they good enough to illustrate the meaning of the word? — that was down to the various editors and ultimately down to James Murray himself.
The mysterious Dr. Minor
Some volunteer readers would send only one or two slips, while others sent in thousands. In fact, one American ex-soldier called Dr. W.C. Minor sent in around ten thousand quotation slips — more than anyone else! Minor had come to England after a traumatic experience during the American Civil War. He struggled with paranoid schizophrenia and one night, during a psychotic episode, killed a man. Minor admitted to the crime, was convicted of murder, and sent to a secure psychiatric institution called Broadmoor Asylum in Crowthorne, near London. Horrified by what he had done, Minor sent money to the widow of his victim. She felt some sympathy towards her husband’s murderer and decided to visit him. When she learnt that Minor loved reading, she brought him books. Her generosity was to have a profound impact on the future of the OED, as Winchester explained.
Simon Winchester: She brought him books week after week, and one day in the 1870s, between two of the volumes she brought, was a little slip of paper published by James Murray at the Oxford University calling for volunteers, people that liked to read, any sentence that illustrated the meaning of a word, would they send it in to 78 Banbury Road in Oxford. And W.C. Minor thought: “Well, I’m here for the rest of my life. I love to read. I’ve got all the time in the world. Why don’t I do it?” And he started sending definitions to Oxford and he became eventually the biggest of all contributors to the dictionary. But no one knew who he was.
A curious friendship
Murray was incredibly grateful for Dr. Minor’s thousands of contributions. So much so, that he decided to travel to Crowthorne near London where the contributions were sent from to thank him in person. As there was a hospital there, Murray assumed that Minor was a doctor on the staff. When he arrived, however, he was stunned by what he found.
Simon Winchester: So Murray took the train down to this village called Crowthorne and there was a horse-drawn carriage waiting for him, which took him through the country lanes, to this great Victorian mansion. And the servant led him to a distinguished-looking man in a book-lined study. And Murray bowed and said, “Good afternoon, Sir, my name is James Murray. I’m the editor of the Oxford English Dictionary. After twenty-five years of correspondence, you must be the mysterious Dr. W.C. Minor.” The man behind the desk said, “No I’m afraid that’s not the case. My name is Orange. I am the director of Broadmoor criminal lunatic asylum, which is the building you’re in. Dr. Minor is indeed here, but I think you ought to know three things about him: he is a murderer, he’s a lunatic and he’s an American. I will take you to him directly.” And the two men met and for the rest of their lives became firm friends even though they were totally different, united though by one thing, and that was the love of the English language.