farmdoc's blog post number 423

Reading the OED: One man, one year, 21730 pages, whose 223 pages I’ve just finished reading, is a cute and entertaining book. Ammon Shea (pictured; hear him here) is a dictionary aficionado who in 12 months up to 18 July 2007 read all 20 volumes of the 1989 second edition of the Oxford English Dictionary. His 2008 book has 26 chapters – one for each alphabet letter. Each begins with a few pages of Shea’s text on a topic related to his OED reading or a more general dictionary-related subject, followed by a few unusual words starting with the relevant alphabet letter, with Shea’s comments on each. I liked the text but to me the words and comments were silly. More text and fewer if any words/comments would’ve made a better book. I loved the statistics: The 20 volumes weigh 132.72 pounds (62½ kg); on the 21,730 pages are 59M words and 2½M quotations but no pictures; the first edition’s first fascicle was published in 1884 and the last one in 1928; 20-25 words start with ‘q’ but their second letter’s not ‘u’; the letter ‘s’ easily has the most entries spanning four volumes and 3,000 pages; the letter ‘x’ has the fewest entries spanning only 13 pages; the longest entry for one word is ‘set’ with 60,000 words over 25 pages giving 155 definitions; and the OED’s last word’s ‘zyxt’. I read Shea’s book in three days. It’s fun. Good on him.