As much as I love words, I’ve never given much thought to their origins or their standardization, and I’ve never considered a time before a dictionary, before a comprehensive “rule book” of words.
The Meaning of Everything is a story of just that: a story of the world before, and during the creation of, the “rule book”. At every stage of my life I have consulted dictionaries for spellings and for definitions, never processing that – at some point – that book itself had to be created. This book was an incredibly interesting read and a chance to look behind the curtain at the creation of the most comprehensive study of the English language at its time.
Full of linguistic battles and political squabbles, the creation of the Oxford English Dictionaries saw various leadership, various (optimistic) deadlines, and the combined willpower of a generation. The two things I found most interesting about this book:
1. Dictionaries have “readers” (many still do), who read various books and works of literature, looking for words and definitions.
2. J.R.R. Tolkien worked as one such “reader” for the OED, working on the W section. Apparently the origin of “walrus” was a particularly difficult one to trace.
I found this book fascinating for the information on the creation of the dictionary and for a general deep-dive into the English language itself. Certainly a niche topic, but one that I enjoyed.
2% Rating: 7/10
Recommend? If you found this review even remotely intriguing, then yes, this is for you.
Re-Read? Maybe
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