Prompt Cast
The Oxford English Dictionary: A Historical Dictionary of the English Language
TLDR The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) is a historical dictionary that aims to include every word in the English language and every usage of that word up until now, with over 600,000 entries, 850,000 definitions, and 3 million quotations. It is a crowdsourced work that traces its roots to the brothers Grimm and has been a never-ending project since its inception in 1842.
Timestamped Summary
00:00
The episode discusses the AC Hotels by Marriott and Squarespace, and then introduces the topic of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) as a historical dictionary that provides definitions, origins, and examples of word usage over time.
04:44
The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) is a historical dictionary that aims to include every word in the English language and every usage of that word up until now, with over 600,000 entries, 850,000 definitions, and 3 million quotations, taking up a significant amount of space and expanding and contracting with the living English language.
10:17
The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) has always been a crowdsourced work, with the editors asking the public to find and send in usages of words on slips of paper, and this collaborative effort continues today, allowing for a wide range of sources and examples to be included in the dictionary.
15:05
The OED traces its roots to the brothers Grimm and their initiative to create a German dictionary in order to show the history of the German language and prove its greatness.
20:20
The Philological Society formed in London in 1842 with the goal of creating an English word book, and they initially focused on finding unregistered words to complete the dictionary, but later decided to take on the entire English language from 1150 to 1850, creating an ongoing and never-ending project.
25:19
The first editor of the Oxford English Dictionary, Herbert Coleridge, died while working on the project and was so dedicated that he had definitions scattered about on his deathbed, while the true driving force behind the completion and publication of the OED was the third editor, James Murray, who was a language prodigy and had a 10-year completion prediction.
30:31
Many women, including the daughter of Karl Marx and Marganita Lasky, contributed to the editing of the OED, with Lasky taking a unique approach by looking at domestic manuals, cookbooks, newspapers, and diaries for entries, and under James Murray's direction, the dictionary began including slang and vulgar words, despite pressure to stick with the original plan.
35:35
Despite facing the daunting task of organizing and filing thousands of slips for the dictionary, the lexicographers at the OED continued their work and released the first supplement in 1933, with 140,000 slips still remaining.
40:52
The Madman, Dr. William Chester Miner, was diagnosed with schizophrenia in the mid-19th century and was sent to an asylum in the UK after killing an innocent man during a delusion, where he was able to live a relatively comfortable life due to his charm, wealth, and personal library of rare books.
45:53
Dr. Miner stayed in touch with the widow of the man he killed, and she even brought him books while he was in the asylum, and he contributed tens of thousands of slips of quotations to the OED during his time there.
51:03
The hosts discuss the rising costs associated with service or labor intensive industries over time, despite no corresponding increase in productivity, and how this phenomenon, known as Baumol's cost disease, explains why things like meals, health insurance, and childcare have become more expensive.
Categories:
Society & Culture
