Reading The OED
August 2, 2008 1:19 PM Subscribe
Nicholson Baker reviews Reading The OED: One Man, One Year, 21,730 Pages "And the lovely-ugly words, words that Shea didn’t know existed, leap up to his hand. Acnestis — the part of an animal’s back that the animal can’t reach to scratch. And bespawl — to splatter with saliva. In Chapter D, Shea encounters deipnophobia, the fear of dinner parties; Chapter K brings kankedort, an awkward situation."
You go to the original document itself and read the OED for yourself--I do not adivse this--or you can read, second hand account by someone who did. Not sure I would buy a book to read about a guy who read the OED in its entirety.Why not skim here and ther in OED and see how you feel about it?
posted by Postroad at 1:40 PM on August 2, 2008
posted by Postroad at 1:40 PM on August 2, 2008
If you scratch my acnestis, I'll scratch yours.
posted by dirigibleman at 1:46 PM on August 2, 2008 [3 favorites]
posted by dirigibleman at 1:46 PM on August 2, 2008 [3 favorites]
Sounds like the premise for The Know-It-All, the account of A.J. Jacobs and his attempt at reading the Encyclopedia Britannica.
posted by Donnie VandenBos at 1:56 PM on August 2, 2008
posted by Donnie VandenBos at 1:56 PM on August 2, 2008
Where's Hal Incandenza when you need him?
posted by SansPoint at 1:57 PM on August 2, 2008 [1 favorite]
posted by SansPoint at 1:57 PM on August 2, 2008 [1 favorite]
"Kankedort." I like this!
posted by Sticherbeast at 1:58 PM on August 2, 2008
posted by Sticherbeast at 1:58 PM on August 2, 2008
I have the book and I have read his posts on the Oxford University Press blog and I'm not particularly whelmed by his undertaking. Shea shows little understanding of his subject even after he has finished his stunt, which he mistakes for a grand achievement. It's not much fun to read about, either. Looking for a point in his writing is like picking chiggers out of powdered cinnamon.*
*Take into account that I've got all kinds of entanglements and shared interests and overlapping peer groups with this fellow, though I don't know him. I am a lexicographer. I used to work for Oxford University Press editing dictionaries full-time and I still freelance for the company. I still know many editors there, including those who work for the Oxford English Dictionary, and my wife, who started there a month ago in the US Dictionaries department. I also own many dictionaries. I was sent a free copy of Ammon's book. I do a radio show about language. I write about language. Etc., etc. Like I said, entanglements. Maybe all that means I'm not his ideal audience.
posted by Mo Nickels at 2:11 PM on August 2, 2008 [1 favorite]
*Take into account that I've got all kinds of entanglements and shared interests and overlapping peer groups with this fellow, though I don't know him. I am a lexicographer. I used to work for Oxford University Press editing dictionaries full-time and I still freelance for the company. I still know many editors there, including those who work for the Oxford English Dictionary, and my wife, who started there a month ago in the US Dictionaries department. I also own many dictionaries. I was sent a free copy of Ammon's book. I do a radio show about language. I write about language. Etc., etc. Like I said, entanglements. Maybe all that means I'm not his ideal audience.
posted by Mo Nickels at 2:11 PM on August 2, 2008 [1 favorite]
I've heard good things about the OED. I'm putting it on my amazon wish list.
posted by Dumsnill at 2:11 PM on August 2, 2008 [1 favorite]
posted by Dumsnill at 2:11 PM on August 2, 2008 [1 favorite]
MetaFilter: Commentary on a review of an account of a reading of a very large book.
Sounds about right!
posted by garethspor at 2:13 PM on August 2, 2008 [2 favorites]
Sounds about right!
posted by garethspor at 2:13 PM on August 2, 2008 [2 favorites]
Even if it was just a stunt, it's a book I'll read for the pleasure of having someone do the heavy lifting for me and bring to light wonderful words like "prend", "bespawl", and "deipnophobia", all of which I plan on using as soon as I can work them into a conversation, pretensions be damned.
Does anyone else feel a sort of light-headed exhilaration when a previously-unknown word clicks into place with a familiar concept? I get a rush of delight from realizing that "there's a word for that" after all.
Yeah, I guess I kinda AM his target audience.
posted by BitterOldPunk at 2:20 PM on August 2, 2008 [3 favorites]
Does anyone else feel a sort of light-headed exhilaration when a previously-unknown word clicks into place with a familiar concept? I get a rush of delight from realizing that "there's a word for that" after all.
Yeah, I guess I kinda AM his target audience.
posted by BitterOldPunk at 2:20 PM on August 2, 2008 [3 favorites]
Well said, BitterOldPunk. I feel there's scope for a blog here, traversing the whole OED one word at a time. Maybe skipping some of the un- words.
posted by Phanx at 2:30 PM on August 2, 2008
posted by Phanx at 2:30 PM on August 2, 2008
I used to try and slip ancient words into every article I wrote -- there's actually a word for the use of outmoded language, gadzookery. My editor caught on and kept an unabridged dictionary next to his desk, and removed words if he couldn't locate them (I had put together a list of almost 30,000 words, categorized in the way that made them useful to me, for this game; my unabridged dictionary was, in fact, hundreds of dictionaries of obscure words.) He didn't seem to enjoy the exercise, but it was like a little prank to me. I miss it.
posted by Astro Zombie at 2:31 PM on August 2, 2008 [2 favorites]
posted by Astro Zombie at 2:31 PM on August 2, 2008 [2 favorites]
AZ, it seems that your categorised list of obscure words would generate great interest if put online.
posted by jouke at 2:35 PM on August 2, 2008 [1 favorite]
posted by jouke at 2:35 PM on August 2, 2008 [1 favorite]
Does anyone else feel a sort of light-headed exhilaration when a previously-unknown word clicks into place with a familiar concept? I get a rush of delight from realizing that "there's a word for that" after all.
Sure! I keep a list, even. But reading the OED to find them is like diving into the chocolate pools at Willy Wonka's factory. Much of the joy, for me, is in the happenstance.
A recent entry on my list: quaquaversal, going off in all directions at once.
posted by Mo Nickels at 2:42 PM on August 2, 2008 [1 favorite]
Sure! I keep a list, even. But reading the OED to find them is like diving into the chocolate pools at Willy Wonka's factory. Much of the joy, for me, is in the happenstance.
A recent entry on my list: quaquaversal, going off in all directions at once.
posted by Mo Nickels at 2:42 PM on August 2, 2008 [1 favorite]
Is there a word for people who read entire dictionaries/encyclopedias?
posted by stbalbach at 3:14 PM on August 2, 2008
posted by stbalbach at 3:14 PM on August 2, 2008
Is there a word for people who read entire dictionaries/encyclopedias?
Pathological?
posted by ornate insect at 3:21 PM on August 2, 2008
Pathological?
posted by ornate insect at 3:21 PM on August 2, 2008
No new words for you, until you use the ones you already have.
posted by StickyCarpet at 3:46 PM on August 2, 2008 [1 favorite]
posted by StickyCarpet at 3:46 PM on August 2, 2008 [1 favorite]
The Know-It-All has already been mentioned, but projects like this always remind me of Joe Queenan's savaging of Jacob's book. Queenan writes:
"[T]he premise of the book is completely wrong. The animating idea of this misguided endeavor is that corralling a vast array of unrelated facts will, in and of itself, make a person more interesting. This is idiotic. Facts absorbed without context merely magnify the intellectual deficiencies of the autodidact, because a poorly educated person does not know which facts are important." (emphasis mine)
posted by Ian A.T. at 6:51 PM on August 2, 2008 [2 favorites]
"[T]he premise of the book is completely wrong. The animating idea of this misguided endeavor is that corralling a vast array of unrelated facts will, in and of itself, make a person more interesting. This is idiotic. Facts absorbed without context merely magnify the intellectual deficiencies of the autodidact, because a poorly educated person does not know which facts are important." (emphasis mine)
posted by Ian A.T. at 6:51 PM on August 2, 2008 [2 favorites]
Metafilter: quaquaversal kankedortery
posted by Greg_Ace at 8:34 PM on August 2, 2008 [1 favorite]
posted by Greg_Ace at 8:34 PM on August 2, 2008 [1 favorite]
What's the point of using very obscure words? Even if your readers take the time to search for "prend" in their dictionary, few will find it. Instead of reading the OED, you might as well just make up some words and save yourself time.
posted by ryanrs at 11:19 PM on August 2, 2008
posted by ryanrs at 11:19 PM on August 2, 2008
That's about 60 pages a day, which sounds do-able. I've been reading anywhere from 30 to 70 pages a day lately, though I haven't been reading a friggin' dictionary. I have been reading Godel, Escher, Bach, though, in which I read two new-to-me words yesterday.
posted by wastelands at 1:32 AM on August 3, 2008
posted by wastelands at 1:32 AM on August 3, 2008
I spent a sickly and misspent childhood reading a Webster's dictionary. I still remember starting at the very beginning, with the phonetic pronunciation chart.
After giving the OED as a present to a friend and using my school's online version, I think that I would like to read through my own copy of the OED. However, I would probably skip the workhorse words and meander through the obsolete ones.
posted by ntartifex at 3:30 AM on August 3, 2008
After giving the OED as a present to a friend and using my school's online version, I think that I would like to read through my own copy of the OED. However, I would probably skip the workhorse words and meander through the obsolete ones.
posted by ntartifex at 3:30 AM on August 3, 2008
Facts absorbed without context merely magnify the intellectual deficiencies of the autodidact
This is true, but word-collecting seems no more harmful a past-time than collecting baseball cards or Xbox achievement points. And for me the joy isn't in the use of the word; using the word merely serves to cement it in memory. The joy is in merely knowing it, having it THERE, like the magpie's appreciation of the shiny bauble.
posted by BitterOldPunk at 8:09 AM on August 3, 2008
This is true, but word-collecting seems no more harmful a past-time than collecting baseball cards or Xbox achievement points. And for me the joy isn't in the use of the word; using the word merely serves to cement it in memory. The joy is in merely knowing it, having it THERE, like the magpie's appreciation of the shiny bauble.
posted by BitterOldPunk at 8:09 AM on August 3, 2008
With the tiny type and huge pages, 60 pages a day in the OED is many hundreds of pages in a regular book, and the jokes are all in Middle English.
posted by lukemeister at 5:55 AM on August 5, 2008
posted by lukemeister at 5:55 AM on August 5, 2008
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