The Dictionary People: The Unsung Heroes Who Created the Oxford English Dictionary by Sarah Ogilvie was a pleasant read about some of the three thousand people who volunteered their time and effort to help create the first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary.
Fifteen years ago I read another book about the making of the OED, The Professor and the Madman, yet that book only profiled two people: one of the dictionary’s editors, James Murray, and a prolific contributor of words to the dictionary, Dr. William Minor. In Ogilvie’s book, she wrote about over two dozen classes of people, sorted according to letter of the alphabet. Thus the book starts A for Archaeologist and is about Margaret Murray. Chapters can get gruesome, such as C for Cannibal and M for Murderers (where most of the information on Dr. Minor is contained) but the lighter side of dictionary making is also covered in chapters such as D for Dictionary Word Nerds and H for Hopeless Contributors. Ogilvie even has a chapter Q for Queers. I am thankful she used that term instead of the ridiculous initial overload beginning with any permutation of LGBTQ+.
In the middle of the nineteenth century an international callout was made for people to read books, journals and newspapers and submit individual words with citations for possible inclusion into the new dictionary. This grand crowdsourcing effort didn’t seek only participation from academics but all kinds of people without prejudice:
“The response was massive. In order to cope with the volume of post arriving in Oxford, the Royal Mail installed a red pillar box outside Dr Murray’s house at 78 Banbury Road to receive post (it is still there today).”
A quick check at Google Maps does indeed show that pillar box outside the editor’s former home, which at the time the Google photo was taken, shows that the house needs a bit of work, such as a fresh coat of paint on the garage, weed removal from the driveway and a hedge trim.
Ogilvie gave credit where it was due, and did her research to find out more about these word nerds. She took pride in profiling some heretofore unknown women contributors. In the middle of the nineteenth century in England, women were kept out of academia. They could not ascend the ladder of the intelligentsia if universities would not even admit them. The author raised a good point: all people who were shut out of universities for whatever reason could be made to feel worthy and part of an elite circle of academics by contributing to the dictionary. No one on the editorial board had to know if you were a dropout, a junkie or a resident in a lunatic asylum (as those institutions were called then). Many were autodidacts and polyglots. Some were hoarders and obsessives. As long as you submitted entries according to the specified format, you were a welcome (but often unthanked) part of the wide dictionary team. That said, the chapter H for Hopeless Contributors was a riot to read, as Murray recorded the negligible input from some people and their deliquency returning (or sometimes not returning at all) prescribed books for reading assignments.
All too often, and much to the contributors’ disappointment, Murray never credited them for their work. It was a rare mention of thanks in an introduction that anyone could hope for. People were rarely paid yet some of the obsessives contributed tens of thousands of word submissions, and a handful even over one hundred thousand.
Find this book in the Mississauga Library System's on-line catalogue
