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Jan 03, 2012

Stephen rated it:

As a completely fledged bibliopsychotic and an ever-striving-to-be cunning-linguist , I was all aquiver with anticipation to bury my face in this purported history of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED). Alas, despite being well-written and thoroughly researched, I’m having to fake it a bit to give this a full 3 stars.

My primary joy-dampening problem with the book’s arrangement was the dearth of page time given to what I see as the most fascinating aspect of the story…the actual nut More...

42 comments like (54 people liked it)

Jan 31, 2012

Debbie rated it:

This book has been on my to-read list for some time, and I had a few preconceived ideas that turned out to be wrong. For instance, I had assumed that the "madman" would have been someone psychotically insane, the type of man that you would pass in the street and cross to the other side, since he would be unkempt and smelly and gibbering nonsense to unseen companions. As it turns out, the "madman" was an American doctor, educated at Yale, who was a surgeon and former Army offi More...

3 comments like (10 people liked it)

Sep 04, 2008

Trevor rated it:

I have been meaning to read this book for years – I couldn’t even tell you when I first saw it or heard about it and thought it would be a good idea to read. Then I saw a copy in a bookshop that was going cheap and bought it on my way to my mother’s place. I showed it to her and then lent it to her. She told me she enjoyed it – so that made me keen to read it too. That was a couple of years ago – as you see, I was in no rush. I think mum even lent it to my sister to read.

This More...

4 comments like (12 people liked it)

Apr 09, 2011

Kinga rated it:

If you know me personally or almost personally, then you should be aware that I am quite mad. I have a heavy obsession with the alphabet, inventing bizarre systems that rule just about anything in my life and catalouging things. It is quite obvious that a book about a lunatic and creating Oxford English Dictionary would be a winner with me. And it was.
However, it wasn't perfect. Winchester performed some weird narrative experiments. For example, he started off with a really exciting scene, More...

6 comments like (14 people liked it)

Mar 18, 2009

Julie (jjmachshev) rated it:

The fascinating and poignant story of the Oxford English Dictionary and two similar, yet very different in circumstance, men whose lives would likely never have crossed except for their work on the OED. Although I had heard the story of the 'lunatic American doctor' who contributed reams of information for the OED, I still found myself riveted to the sad story (and occasional salacious detail in my opinion). As a word geek myself, I have a love/hate affair with dictionaries and yes, there are More...

5 comments like (5 people liked it)

Jul 19, 2011

Marvin rated it:

Simon Winchester gave us a lot of information in this unusual tale of the making of the Oxford English Dictionary. So why do I feel it was stretched out even at 200+ pages. Well, it really is a bit of a thin story . Aside from the story of Dr. Minor's crime and his resulting mental incarceration, not much happens. Surely, I found the history of the English dictionary entertaining but I couldn't help thinking that Winchester may have exaggerated the importance of Minor's contributions. After all, More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Apr 06, 2011

Amang rated it:

"Bahasa menunjukkan bangsa", demikian pepatah lama berbunyi. Apa artinya pepatah itu? Pertama ia bisa diartikan demikian. Tabiat seseorang dapat dilihat dari cara bertutur kata mereka. Kalau tabiatnya penuh kasih, maka ia akan berbicara dengan penuh kelembutan. Terlepas benar tidaknya, tapi zaman sekarang tidak menentukan juga. Kedua, pepatah ini dapat diartikan demikian bahwa kesopansantunan seseorang menunjukkan asal keluarganya. Ini pun bisa dengan mudah diperdebatkan sampai sejauhm More...

27 comments like (15 people liked it)

Oct 22, 2010

Danae rated it:

This is a perfect example of a book that I wish had been written by David McCullough. I gave it three stars based primarily on potential--the story itself was very interesting; the writing was more like 2 stars. I cannot believe this man has been able to make his living as a writer on two continents. His main problem was being redundant, giving the general impression that his target audience was not-too-bright fifth graders (I don't need every little coincidence and connection pointed out 5 t More...

4 comments like (10 people liked it)

Nov 04, 2007

Kelly rated it:

I absolutely loved this book. The fundamental story was really interesting and consistently kept me excited about reading the next page. It is basically about the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) and specifically two of the key players in that venture: James Murray (the Scottish editor working in England) and W. C. Minor (the American contributor living in an English insane asylum). It doesn't pretend to tell the full story of the OED, but it does give a really good feel for what More...

0 comments like (5 people liked it)

Jul 23, 2008

JuliAnna rated it:

I love intellectual history and books about books. I am increasingly taken with the 19th century and the British gentlemen scholars who (on the wings of Empire) conducted their research independently of academic institutions and the need to generate an income. And, I won't go into my long standing interests in madness and etymology (although not necessarily in combination). "The Professor and the Madman" weaves together all of these themes in a book that unfortunately never becomes mor More...

1 comment like (5 people liked it)

Feb 08, 2009

Juliana rated it:

I enjoyed geeking out about the making of the Oxford English Dictionary, and that's definitely what attracted me to this book. I was fascinated by the description of Minor's methodical process of collecting examples of words, and in fact could have read more of this type of thing. That being said, I had the problem I often have with popular nonfiction-- I'm a bit too much of an academic. I want footnotes, I want to know why the writer is saying this is what happened and what their support is for More...

1 comment like (3 people liked it)

Mar 11, 2009

Rebecca rated it:

Bibliophiles, logomaniacs, OEDites everywhere-- this is a GREAT word-addled romp. Who knew that the history of English dictionaries would be so riveting? The professor and the madman are respectively the editor of the OED and a brilliant and an institutionalized contributor. The narrative is the story of their lives, their phililogical and etymological overlap, and the completion of the OED. There's lots of spine-tingling victorian mystery with the murderous madman-- but in the end, in spite of More...

1 comment like (4 people liked it)

Nov 11, 2007

Emily rated it:

this book is pretentious. I guess if you have to write a book about the OED, it has to be written in a really pretentious, loquacious manner with lots of stupid words like "loquacious". that being said, it is an interesting story.

1 comment like (7 people liked it)

May 06, 2009

Bruce rated it:

Trevor has a great rave of this book, and of Simon Winchester. Like all of Trevor's reviews, this one is also well worth reading... http://apps.new.facebook.com/good_reads/... but I'm more lukewarm on Winchester's work than my Goodreading friend. Hard to say why, exactly. I loved The Story of English PBS companion volume, postively ate up The Smithsonian Book of Books, am a devotee of William Safire's column on language and the whole NYT section devoted to grammar, and am fascinated by semioti More...

1 comment like (2 people liked it)

Oct 25, 2011

Amathonthe rated it:

Baca buku ini jadi semakin menghargai kamus. ternyata susah juga ya membuat sebuah buku kumpulan kata-kata yang memberikan banyak arti.. apalagi kontribusi dari OED seroang penderita Skizofernia..

18 comments like (2 people liked it)

Sep 30, 2008

Alex rated it:

I read this book for the first time several years ago, and I continue to pick it up and reread it every so often. This book marked the start of my love affair with words.

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Jan 22, 2009

Jill rated it:

The idea of taking a word, tracing its roots, finding its first origins in print, and writing multiple definitions that perfectly capture its meaning--sound like a daunting task? Now imagine doing this with EVERY word in the English language. That was the task taken up by the men and women who compiled the Oxford English Dictionary. There were many fascinating characters in this real-life drama, but Simon Winchester focuses his lens on perhaps the most compelling of all--Dr. William Minor. This More...

2 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 20, 2010

Cheryl rated it:

Some of the best stories are ones that are true, because the experience of the story itself is enhanced by constant sanity checks as the reader has to remember, "Wait a minute, all this ridiculousness actually happened." But that's the way life is, it's a crazy mess of ridiculousness and converging circumstances, and sometimes that mess turns into a highly unlikely but fortuitous occasion, much like Dr Minor's incarceration in an institution for the criminally insane coinciding with Dr More...

2 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 08, 2008

Casey rated it:

If you like etymology, you should read "The Professor and the Madman." Etymology, the study of how words and language change over time, is not to be confused with epididymitis. Which occurs when a man's epididymis, the gummy tissue that connects the vas deferens to the testis, becomes inflamed and creates a relentless dull pain. I dabble in hypochondria from time to time and that fateful afternoon was no exception. Upon waking up with swollen testicles, I spent the better part of half More...

1 comment like (2 people liked it)

Nov 18, 2010

Skylar rated it:

This book--part true crime, part literary history, part human interest story—-was difficult to put down. It tells the story of two of the personalities behind the making of The Oxford English Dictionary. One, the professor James Murray, was the editor of the tome. The other, Dr. W.C. Minor, was a major contributor to The OED, a former American army surgeon, and a raving lunatic. The Professor and the Madman also narrates the process of compiling The OED and throws in some fascinating etymolog More...

1 comment like (2 people liked it)

Nov 30, 2008

David rated it:

This book was interesting in a number of ways. The story has human interest--a mentally ill killer giving an assist to the biggest dictionary project in history. Winchester, as always, writes gracefully.

As with many books, though, I think making the story book-length was a stretch. This story would have been a fine lead article in The New Yorker. The publishing conventions require a book of a certain length, so that people will pay enough to justify the production costs.

S More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Oct 06, 2011

Rita rated it:

Interesting to read the story of the madman who contributed to the huge project of compiling the OED, and to learn how the OED came about, how it all was done, most complicated. All the hundreds of volunteers.

Perhaps I have gotten spoiled by reading too many excellently written novels, but Winchester as a writer leaves a great deal to be desired, does a lot of distracting things in the book [sweeping statements, contradicting himself sometimes from one page to the next, filling in too More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Mar 26, 2011

Cassandra rated it:

One of the greatest things we can glean from any work of literature is some form of appriciation. Whether that is an appriciation of art, a person, an event or any other various thing is unimportant. Appriciation breeds understanding. I think the wonderful thing that this book achieved was an appriciation of the grand scale event that was the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary, and especially of the intricacies of personality that were involved. The book was short, and perhaps the writing More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 13, 2010

Merrylinn rated it:

I learned so much from this book! I find it amazing that the editor of the first complete dictionary had the compassion to support a 30+ year relationship with one of the book's greatest contributors, a "madman", housed in an insane asylum. This book not only tell the story of how the First Oxford English Dictionary was produced (solicit the public - what a great idea), but of the sad story of man who truly loses his mind. This is a fabulous read!

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Apr 22, 2008

Allan rated it:

While reading about how violuteers contributed to the vast Oxford English dictionary, and considering how they submitted meticulously researched quotes of the use of each word from books they were reading to a litle shed in England where hundreds of stacks of cards were shifted and assembled into a monolithic source of knowledge, I could not help but see the parallels with the building of Wikipedia by volunteers. The Oxford English Dictioanry was a kind of Wikipedia of the late 19th and early 2 More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Jul 14, 2008

Latharia rated it:

This book has deepened my respect for the development of the English dictionary. It had not registered what a monumental undertaking it was, spanning about 4 decades. And this element of the story was truly fascinating: how events unfolded so that an American Civil War surgeon, imprisoned in a British insane asylum, would contribute so massively to the overall work. I think anyone who appreciates the process of research, the era of the latter half of the 19th century, or who has a love of words, More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Feb 09, 2012

Helen added it

For 'Crowthorne' read 'Broadmoor' - a name that may not mean much to the non-British, but is surely known to nearly everyone in the UK as the title of a famous Hospital, once known as Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum, which was - and is - situated in the Berkshire village of Crowthorne.[return]This is a well-written, non-fictional account of what is described rather luridly on the front cover as 'a tale of murder, madness and the Oxford English Dictionary'. Our two protagonists are Dr James Mur More...

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Jan 23, 2009

Mike rated it:

In 1872, a paranoid ex-army Dr. W.C. Minor killed a brewery worked on his way to his shift in Victoriam Lambeth in London. Minor spends the majority of the rest of his life in the Broadmoor mental institution. He's a very educated man and ends up contributing thousands of entries to the Oxford English Dictionary being organized by James Murray.

I found the work that went into the OED unbelievable. It was a bit like the first Wikipedia with many contributors sending in their informati More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 22, 2009

Jen rated it:

*The is the review I'd posted on Amazon in 1999*:
I thoroughly enjoyed this book, mainly for learning about some of the key people and events behind one of the greatest undertakings in the English language. A lot of us today take the existence of the dictionary for granted, not realizing how it evolved from its first incarnations, or exactly what kind of work went into its preparation. Simon Winchester does a great job tracing the history of the dictionary to give frame of reference to his More...

1 comment like

Jan 22, 2012

Jared rated it:

It’s all in a name, and Simon Winchester chose the perfect one. Nonfiction like this one is few and far between – little jewels of history are uncovered amidst the most dull moments of time. Writing a dictionary on the surface sounds painfully boring, but when Simon spices it up through the eyes of Minor & Murray, the two protagonists of the book, it transforms into a delightful tale filled with surprises and wonder.

Dr. Minor is profiled so meticulously, which shows Winchester di More...

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