Yesterday I wrote about the still newish word ‘bibliomemoir’—and in doing do failed to mention the ‘bibliomemoir’ that I think is the best of all.
It’s called Reading the OED by Ammon Shea.
The book (first published in 2008) is based on Ammon Shea’s experience of spending a whole year reading through the full Oxford English Dictionary.
The FULL Oxford is not the small desk dictionary you are familiar with.
The full (the complete) Oxford runs to 20 volumes—each the size of an old-fashioned encyclopedia volume.
It contains a grand total of 21,730 pages and weighs 62 kilograms.
I have never owned a full, complete, Oxford in my life (it is just too expensive).
However, I have the full text available to me online.
As a subscriber I can consult the whole, massive, multi-volume publication (the entire Oxford English language data base) online.
And I can search it electronically, which is very convenient.
But that’s not what Ammon Shea did.
He bought the big, hardback, printed version and read it from beginning to end.
His ‘bibliomemoir’ Reading the OED tells the story of spending an entire year reading through the vast and impressive publication, and the things he found on the way.
His book is arranged into 26 alphabetical chapters—in each of which he records some of the strange, obsolete, and just plain weird words that are recorded in the OED.
In his introduction Ammon Shea says, ‘As I read I jotted down all the words I found outrageous, funny, or archaic and deserving of resurrection.’
He says that his book Reading the OED contains ‘all the words from the OED that I think people would like to know about, if only they didn’t have to read the whole damn dictionary in order to find them.’
So, he did our reading for us, sitting in his New York apartment¸ not getting enough sun, and just reading—for a whole year.
The result (in my view) is a sheer delight.
For any Wordie to read Ammon Shea’s charming and well-written book is to take a journey through Logistan—the Land of Words (and, yes, I just made up ‘Logistan’—from the Greek word for ‘word’ and the suffix ‘stan’ which means ‘land of’; ‘Afghanistan’ is the ‘land of the Afghans’ and so on).
At any rate the point of all this is to strongly recommend Reading the OED by Ammon Shea as a great read that I think you might enjoy.
Check it out in your local library—see if they have it or can it in for you.
The new edition of The Spectator Australia is in newsagents now -- with the classy cartoon of a proposal on the front cover, and my 'Language' column in the back (in the lifestyle section).
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BOOKS:
* My latest book is Sherlock Holmes: 5-Minute Mysteries -- containing 50 new stories I have written about the great detective. You can find it on Amazon. Just go to Amazon and type in Sherlock Holmes: 5-Minute Mysteries in the search panel. Or use this link: h Amazon.com.au : Sherlock Holmes 5-Minute Mysteries Kel Richards
* My book "Defending the Gospel" is now in a second, fully revised, edition. You can find it here: Defending the Gospel – matthiasmedia.com.au
* If you're looking for my recent book "Flash Jim" you'll find it here -- Flash Jim, The astonis
hing story of the convict fraudster who wrote Australia's first dictionary by Kel Richards | 9781460759769 | Booktopia
* You can find all Kel's books currently in print here -- Booktopia Search Results for 'kel richards'. We sell books, hardback, paperback, audio, CDs.
* And also here -- Amazon.com.au : Kel Richards
* And you'll find more here -- Search: 4 results found for "Kel Richards" – matthiasmedia.com.au
* Many of Kel's out of print books can be found at ABE Books -- Kel Richards - AbeBooks explaining words explain the term
BY THE WAY...
If you'd like to see my A-Z list of Aussie slang, you'll find it here in the Australian Geographic website -- A-Z list of Aussie slang. Here’s the link: The A-Z of Aussie slang - Australian Geographic
The liveliest part of this website is usually the Q and A page -- be sure to check it out from time to time.
