The Word Detective: Searching for the Meaning of It All at the Oxford English Dictionary

John D. Cofield said A Career And A Life Devoted To Words. The Oxford English Dictionary is one of those towering achievements of scholarship that leaves us all in awe: twenty massive volumes in the original edition, plus supplements; a century's worth of painstaking research that is ongoing and (we trust) never ending. If you've read Simon Winchester's The Professor And The Madman and The Meaning Of It All you already have a good notion of the enormity of the task the first editors undertook in the OED. Now in The Word Detective John Simpson, recent. Christian Schlect said The Meaning of it All. Those with an interest in English words, dictionaries, and advances in computer-driven communication technologies will enjoy this memoir by John Simpson.The former editor of the Oxford English Dictionary, a treasure of our culture, explains his work while at the OED, takes time to delve deeper into the meanings of some random words, and gently brings into the picture his family life.While the main thrust of the story is the OED and how it adapted to modern technology, the most touching aspect. For aficionados of the English language and/or the Oxford English Dictionary R. M. Peterson John Simpson worked on the Oxford English Dictionary for over thirty-five years. Freshly graduated from university, he began researching and writing entries for the Supplement to the First Edition of the OED. He progressed to editor of the Concise Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs, then senior editor of the OED, then co-editor of the Second Edition of the OED ("OED2"), and finally, until his retirement in 2013, the chief editor of the OED3 -- which is still in progress. THE WORD DETECTIVE is Simp

There is no better guide to the dictionary's many wonderments than its former chief editor, John Simpson. In The Word Detective, an intensely personal memoir and a joyful celebration of English, he weaves a story of how words come into being, how culture shapes language, and how technology transforms words. "A charmingly full, frank, and humorous account of a career dedicated to rigorous lexicographic rectitude. A brilliant and deeply humane expedition through the world of words, The Word Detective will delight and inspire any lover of language.. He is an absolute hero."-Lynne Truss, New York TimesCan you drink a glass of balderdash? And what do you call the part of a dog's back it can't scratch? The answers to these questions can be found in the Oxford English Dictionary

He lives in Gloucestershire, United Kingdom. . John Simpson is the former chief editor of the Oxford English Dictionary, where he helped digitize the dictionary

Providence Journal:"Delightfula fitting companion to Elisabeth Murray's Caught in the Web of Words and Simon Winchester's The Professor and the MadmanSimpson peppers the text of his book with page-long etymologies for everything from 'inkling' to 'balderdash' to 'selfie,' and with affecting touches of his personal and family history, all of which deepen and humanize this fascinating paean to lexicography."