Comments on: Reading The OED

Reading The OED

vronsky — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 13:19:44 -0800

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."

By: TedW

TedW — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 13:31:37 -0800

Oh man, acnestis will be worked into every conversation I have for the next week! It needs to be added to spellcheck, though.

By: carsonb

carsonb — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 13:37:38 -0800

This is totally pukka.

By: Postroad

Postroad — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 13:40:55 -0800

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?

By: dirigibleman

dirigibleman — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 13:46:51 -0800

If you scratch my acnestis, I'll scratch yours.

By: Donnie VandenBos

Donnie VandenBos — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 13:56:23 -0800

Sounds like the premise for The Know-It-All, the account of A.J. Jacobs and his attempt at reading the Encyclopedia Britannica.

By: SansPoint

SansPoint — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 13:57:40 -0800

Where's Hal Incandenza when you need him?

By: Sticherbeast

Sticherbeast — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 13:58:53 -0800

"Kankedort." I like this!

By: danb

danb — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 14:09:06 -0800

Oh god. So many band names.

By: Mo Nickels

Mo Nickels — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 14:11:01 -0800

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.

By: Dumsnill

Dumsnill — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 14:11:59 -0800

I've heard good things about the OED. I'm putting it on my amazon wish list.

By: garethspor

garethspor — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 14:13:29 -0800

MetaFilter: Commentary on a review of an account of a reading of a very large book. Sounds about right!

By: BitterOldPunk

BitterOldPunk — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 14:20:36 -0800

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.

By: Phanx

Phanx — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 14:30:48 -0800

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.

By: Astro Zombie

Astro Zombie — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 14:31:27 -0800

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.

By: jouke

jouke — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 14:35:18 -0800

AZ, it seems that your categorised list of obscure words would generate great interest if put online.

By: Mo Nickels

Mo Nickels — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 14:42:22 -0800

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.

By: stbalbach

stbalbach — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 15:14:25 -0800

Is there a word for people who read entire dictionaries/encyclopedias?

By: vronsky

vronsky — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 15:15:51 -0800

"quaquaversal" - I like that one Mo!

By: ornate insect

ornate insect — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 15:21:53 -0800

Is there a word for people who read entire dictionaries/encyclopedias? Pathological?

By: StickyCarpet

StickyCarpet — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 15:46:23 -0800

No new words for you, until you use the ones you already have.

By: Ian A.T.

Ian A.T. — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 18:51:34 -0800

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)

By: Greg_Ace

Greg_Ace — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 20:34:10 -0800

Metafilter: quaquaversal kankedortery

By: ryanrs

ryanrs — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 23:19:52 -0800

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.

By: wastelands

wastelands — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 01:32:43 -0800

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.

By: ntartifex

ntartifex — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 03:30:39 -0800

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.

By: BitterOldPunk

BitterOldPunk — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 08:09:09 -0800

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.

By: lukemeister

lukemeister — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 05:55:58 -0800

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.