Title: A Real Delight
Product review: Anything by Simon Winchester is bound to be a delight due to his mastery of the English language and his ability to tell a fascinating tale. In The Meaning of Everything he returns to much of the same subject matter as he covered in his best known work, The Professor and the Madman.The Oxford English Dictionary is a peerless reference work. Winchester tells the story of how it was conceived and brought to fruition by the work of numerous talented men and women from the mid eighteen hundreds up until the 1920s. He describes the painstaking work that developing each etymology and definition involved and the many personalities involved, most especially the greatest of the Dictionary's editors, Sir James Murray. There are also many vignettes of some of the others who spent time and energy creating the Dictionary, including J.R.R. Tolkien, who created many of the W definitions.This is a delightful book that will entertain you even if you rarely have occasion to consult the OED.
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