'Cause I'm A Bit Of A Dictionary Geek
Feb. 7th, 2008 10:02 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
disbelief11I bought myself a page-a-day calendar this year - Forgotten English.
Some of my favorite words so far: ignify, womblety-cropt, and dismurderized.
Today's tidbit of interest also caught my dictionary loving attention:
Birthday of Sir James Murray (1837-1915), Scottish-born lexicographer... After determining that farm life was not for him...he continued the most ambitious literary undertaking of his era...unifying the myriad English dictionaries into a single comprehensive work. Using hundreds of thousands of small slips of paper organized in more than a thousand cubby-holes in a shed behind his home, loftily called the "Scriptorium," he personally wrote, sorted, and edited nearly half of the entries found in the first half of the New English Dictionary. This project, which eventually became the Oxford English Dictionary, required over half a century and 16,000 finished pages - several times Murray's original estimate.
Also, wishing everyone a happy, healthy and prosperous Year of the Rat!
Some of my favorite words so far: ignify, womblety-cropt, and dismurderized.
Today's tidbit of interest also caught my dictionary loving attention:
Birthday of Sir James Murray (1837-1915), Scottish-born lexicographer... After determining that farm life was not for him...he continued the most ambitious literary undertaking of his era...unifying the myriad English dictionaries into a single comprehensive work. Using hundreds of thousands of small slips of paper organized in more than a thousand cubby-holes in a shed behind his home, loftily called the "Scriptorium," he personally wrote, sorted, and edited nearly half of the entries found in the first half of the New English Dictionary. This project, which eventually became the Oxford English Dictionary, required over half a century and 16,000 finished pages - several times Murray's original estimate.
Also, wishing everyone a happy, healthy and prosperous Year of the Rat!
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no subject
Date: 2008-02-08 01:59 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-08 02:06 am (UTC)