Finally, on March 1, 1879, almost a quarter of a century after the speech by Richard Chenevix Trench, a document was formally agreed upon: James Murray was to edit, on behalf of the Philological Society of London, The New English Dictionary on Historical Principles, which would spread itself across an estimated seven thousand quarto pages in four thick volumes, and take ten years to complete. It was still a woeful underestimate, but the work was now beginning properly, and this time it was never to stop.
Still, really respect the commitment to a scholarly endeavor that was to take a decade to complete.
