In Other Words

I am a lover of words. I was raised in a household that visited libraries, listened to audio-books on road trips, and played boggle at the kitchen table at least once a week. No wonder that I became an English teacher. And I've now read two books recently that fascinated me as a logophile.

The first was The Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester. This reading was inspired by watching the 2019 film of the same name, starring Sean Penn and Mel Gibson. I watched the movie with my aunt when I visited her home in Washington this summer.

The movie was fascinating and when I saw that it was based on a true story and there was a book, I knew I had to read it. I listened to the audiobook in this case. This nonfiction book delves into the history behind the making of the Oxford English Dictionary in the latter half of the 19th century.

Winchester documents the stories of William Chester Minor, a retired US Army Surgeon who was imprisoned at Broadmoor Lunatic Asylum after murdering a man. During his confinement, he assisted Sir James Murray, the chief editor of the Oxford English Dictionary throughout most of its creation. It is a fascinating history and Winchester does a great job of painting the picture of these two men's lives and how they came to cross paths.

More recently I read Word by Word by Kory Stamper. I came across this one on my city library shelf. This non-fiction reads more as a personal memoir as her time as an editor for the Miriam Webster dictionary. She fills the pages with fascinating tidbits about words--ones that even a word-lover like me has to look up--as well as the process of how dictionaries and definitions are put together and fun personal anecdotes. Stamper even includes a small footnote about the notorious Dr. Miner and his contributions to the OED. 

I enjoyed this book a lot. I've been in the pattern of reading memoirs recently and this one read easily. But I also loved the portions where she focused on the etymology of words or the different aspects of work that goes into compiling a dictionary or even preparing a dictionary for a new addition. It takes more than just defining a handful of new words, but requires a re-examination of the words contained within to identify any changes in usage over time. 

I would recommend these reads for my fellow English lovers, non-fiction readers, and even lovers of history.