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"Winchester's involving and gregarious narration is nearly Dickensian. Even his footnotes twinkle." - Gregory Kirschling , Entertainment Weekly
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"Winchester's involving and gregarious narration is nearly Dickensian. Even his footnotes twinkle." - Gregory Kirschling, Entertainment Weekly • "What shines through Winchester's account is his acute sense of the values that the Dictionary represents, in particular its democratic inclusiveness" - Tom Penn, Times Literary Supplement • "One of the virtues of Simon Winchester's The Meaning of Everything is that he makes it clear just how fantastically difficult a thing the OED was to achieve." - John Lanchester, Daily Telegraph
The Meaning of Everything Presented by Ashleigh Lacey, Kelly Salyer, Eisabeth Wise, Justin Anderson, Meghan Campbell, Sarah Horton, and Geoffrey Bernard By Simon Winchester
Activity! • English majors are trained in adoxography! • Lawyers are great adoxographers!
Winchester’s thesis • The OED did not just come about, its creation was a work of incredible magnitude and arduous labor – which was achieved through the conquering spirit of Victorian England. These people were unique in their large amount of money, leisure, and intellectual fervency. Simon Winchester set out to give credit where it was due and take credit from where it was not.
The methods used • Simon Winchester argues his thesis through a story. He presents the history of the dictionary through the stories of the people that made it. He writes this historical narrative with an active, entertaining prose.
The evidence • Winchester bases his story off of generally known historical fact in addition to diaries, personal letters, direct quotes from other works, myths and tall tales, and interviews.
Winchester’s Conclusion • Though the OED is the greatest testament to the English language, it will never be finished, as the English language is always evolving into the future.
The Good • “A review of The Meaning of Everything” by Werner Hullen in Historiographia Linguistica (2005) • “Review of The Meaning of Everything” by Marc Pierce in Contemporary Literary Criticism (2006) • You Could Look it Up” by William F. Buckley Jr. in The New York Times (2003)
The Bad • Christopher Howse of The Spectator the ugly • “Simon Winchester’s laboured account of a labour of love” by Steven Poole of The Guardian (2003)
Assumptions that were challenged • There is a contrast between the prescriptivism we are told to teach as English teachers and the descriptivism praised in this book. • Linguistics/lexicography/dictionaries created by experts in ivory towers. • During the creation of the O.E.D., it was not the work that was the primary obstacle, but the politics involved that hindered the progress of the dictionary.
Assumptions that were challenged • The creation of the dictionary was not stately and neat; it was chaotic, yet systematic. • Winchester’s book illustrated just how monumental a project the O.E.D. was to complete. • The process of a small group of people deciding which words belonged in the dictionary and which were left out was oddly similar to the process used by the French.
Assumptions that were challenged • The book challenges the assumption that definitions have always existed and been available. • The democratic process of using volunteers to help gather examples of the words challenged my idea that only scholars and linguists participated in the creation of reference books.
