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Half-term mini-haul: Part 1.

I like this more for it heroic read is how it shows the people involved are from all walks of life, and other parts of the world, where most of them had no expectation of being credited, receiving pay or a reward for their contribution to make the OED.

This is not a perfect read but for me an interesting one.

I'm really enjoying this, I had no idea that so many ordinary people helped to produce the OED 😊

Light pick. Ogilvie gives voice to a number of the Dictionary People, employees and volunteers who collected words and definitions for the Oxford English Dictionary. I liked the set up of the book—each chapter is a letter of the alphabet and a topic starting with that letter. Some chapters are terrific, and others ramble a bit. This is not a boon to sit and read for hours on end; I found myself reading a chapter or two at a time.

Ogilvie packs a great deal of detail into this A to Z volume of the eclectic people that helped create the Oxford English Dictionary. The varied and prodigious contributions are as interesting as the people that made them. Although an inspired work, it was too much material and needed editing. It is a soft pick for me with 3 of 5 ⭐️.

Some entries are better than others.

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"In eighteenth-century North America, Benjamin Franklin - who owned a firm that printed money for the colonies - hit on the idea of misspelling Pennsylvania on official currency on the grounds that forgers would spell it correctly and the notes could easily be spotted as counterfeit, but that only went so far."

#womensprizeNF

The author looks at the ‘ordinary‘ people who contributed words, their etymologies and sources to the OED, back in the 1800s and early 1900s.

I enjoyed meeting all of these people, as well as learning a LOT of new words. I particularly admired the author‘s ability to link each chapter (A is for Archaeologists, Z is for Zealots) together, and I could imagine her shuffling little cards around, just like the contributors of old.

Contents page!

Love this list! I‘ve read two, loved them both and have a further 2 waiting on my shelf! Feel pretty chuffed with my reading choices! 👍🏼

This is a really interesting look at the creation of the OED, from the original creators to contributors and more. Its structure is fun (A-Z chapters) and it feels like a smooth narrative where it could have been choppy or muddled. I really enjoyed it and think it‘s a great NF pairing for Pip Williams‘ The Dictionary of Lost Words.

It‘s non fiction November these are two of my favorite choices The Dictionary People and Dwell Time📚📕

This took us to parlours, churches, verandas, and asylums to reveal the lives of ordinary Victorian people doing extraordinary things as volunteer contributors to the Oxford English Dictionary. Outside of the well told lives - I was fascinated by the process of compiling the dictionary. In the world of google you forget how human, how arbitrary, how fragile and how magnificent compiling the dictionary was. It‘s art. It‘s history. It‘s amazing!5⭐️