The Dictionary People: The Unsung Heroes Who Created the Oxford English Dictionary by Sarah Ogilvie

 

Summary (from the publisher): A history and celebration of the many far-flung volunteers who helped define the English language, word by word.

The Oxford English Dictionary is one of mankind’s greatest achievements, and yet, curiously, its creators are almost never considered. Who were the people behind this unprecedented book? As Sarah Ogilvie reveals, they include three murderers, a collector of pornography, the daughter of Karl Marx, a president of Yale, a radical suffragette, a vicar who was later found dead in the cupboard of his chapel, an inventor of the first American subway, a female anti-slavery activist in Philadelphia . . . and thousands of others. 

Of deep transgenerational and broad appeal, a thrilling literary detective story that, for the first time, unravels the mystery of the endlessly fascinating contributors the world over who, for over seventy years, helped to codify the way we read and write and speak. It was the greatest crowdsourcing endeavor in human history, the Wikipedia of its time.  

The Dictionary People is a celebration of words, language, and people, whose eccentricities and obsessions, triumphs, and failures enriched the English language.

Review: This book had its origins in the author's archival explorations when she stumbled across a book that originally belonged to James Murray, the long-suffering primary editor of the Oxford English Dictionary. In it, Murray had carefully recorded the names and addresses of the thousands of volunteers who had helped contribute words to the project. This sparked the author to research the many volunteers - their backgrounds, curious life stories, and motivation to contribute to the project. 

This was clearly meticulously researched. The author went to great lengths to track down the disparate individuals that were part of this project. And it does preserve history of the original creation of the Oxford English Dictionary that would otherwise be lost. It gives some insight into the immense task it was to compile the dictionary. Murray worked on it for over a decade and foolishly accepted a lump sum for the task, not realizing it would end up taking years more than originally assumed. And yet, he couldn't have done it in isolation, relying wholly on the work of thousands around the globe who combed through various books, letters, and texts and sent in words on "slips" to Murray for inclusion in the dictionary. 

I learned from interesting facts from this book. Did you know Jane Austen is the first person to record the word "outsiders" in print? But not in a novel but instead in one of her letters. The lives of many of the volunteers were scintillating - murderers, liars, and cheats and everyone in between volunteered on this project. It was a motley crew. The book was also excellently done on audio.

However, despite its advantages, in many ways this book was a tedious read for me and I struggled to stay engaged. The book is organized into chapters A through Z, which was a fun organization for a book about a dictionary. However, it boxed the author in in terms of organization and content for each chapter, which had to be restricted to the word selected to represent each letter. Also, the book is ostensibly about the 3,000 volunteers. This is a wildly broad goal and the book shows it. It boils down to summarized biographies of a handful of the most prominent/shocking/prolific volunteers. 

I will say that before this book, I had no clue about the process or immense scale of the project of putting together a dictionary. Some of the individual stories shared were very entertaining. But I think I might have enjoyed this more if it had been a dedicated biography of Murray, with some side jaunts describing some of the biggest volunteer contributors he worked with for this project. 

Stars: 3