It took 12 "tombstone" size books to capture all of the words they had recorded. It took them over 70 years to complete the first version (1857 - 1928).īy the end of the project, the team had defined 414,825 words with over 1.8MM supporting quotes used to illustrate different interpretations of each word. Believe it or not, there was no real comprehensive dictionary of the English language until 1857, when a group of ambitious lexicographers decided to create one.Īs you might imagine, creating a book of every English word and every use of that word was, for lack of a better word, a tremendous amount of work. The Professor and the Madman tells the story of the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED). The two main characters and the story of the creation of the first real, comprehensive dictionary could have been really gripping, but somehow this just missed the mark. It’s interesting, but it feels like it doesn’t really go anywhere satisfying.
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