CLASSIC: The Bizarre Origin of the Oxford English Dictionary

Ridiculous History

iHeartPodcasts

History, Society & Culture

4.3 • 4.4K Ratings

🗓️ 16 August 2025

⏱️ 46 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

With 600,000 words and 3 million quotations, the Oxford English Dictionary is a massive tome. Work began on the dictionary in 1857, but the first edition wasn't published until 1884. Compiling the dictionary was a Herculean task, and James Murray, the editor of the dictionary, put out a call for assistance. This early crowdsourcing strategy worked surprisingly well. Murray was particularly impressed by his most prolific and consistent contributor, an enigmatic fellow named Dr. W.C. Minor. So impressed, in fact, that Murray decided he had to meet the man in person. It's safe to say the meeting didn't go as expected.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Oh, fellow ridiculous historians, friends, and neighbors, I don't know about you all, but this is one of my,
0:08.2	maybe not favorite of our classic episodes, but it's one that really stuck with me as a word nerd.
0:14.1	It's a bit of a pet subject for you, Ben, wordery, etymology.
0:18.7	Oh, so say we all.
0:20.6	Word smithery. Ah, so say we all, Noel. I know we're Oh. Wordplay. Word smithery.
0:22.0	Ah, so say we all, Noel.
0:23.6	I know we're both big fans of reference works, etymology, weird word facts.
0:29.4	And the last word in dictionaries here in this language is the Oxford English Dictionary.
0:41.0	Or as I like to call it, the Oxford English Dictionary.
0:44.5	Yeah, or the OED, if you're nasty.
0:47.0	But the thing is, we started looking into the origin story here, and we found something that was just a roller coaster, man.
0:58.8	Yeah, if you're a coasterhead and an etymology fan
1:01.6	and perhaps a bit of a wordsmith yourself,
1:03.4	you're going to really dig this one on the bizarre origin of the OED,
1:08.7	aka the Oxford English Dictionary. This is an I-Heart podcast. This.a. the Oxford English dictionary.
1:13.9	This is an I-Heart podcast.
1:19.3	Adventure should never come with a pause button.
1:23.2	Remember a movie pass? All the movies you wanted for just nine bucks?
1:26.2	I'm Bridget Todd, host of There Are No Girls on the Internet.
1:47.1	And this season, I'm digging into the tech stories we weren't told. Starting with Stacey Spikes, the black founder of Movie Pass, who got pushed out of the company he built. Everybody's trying to knock you down and it's not going to work and no one's going to like it. And then boom, it's everywhere. And that was that moment. Listen to there are no girls on the internet on the IHartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast.
2:35.5	Ridiculous historians. We're here. We're live. Well, we're recording this live. Welcome to the show Ridiculous Historians. My name is Ben. We are, of course, joined with our super producer, Casey Pegram. My trusty co-host, Noel, is off on some lovely adventures on the other side of the country, but we'll return very soon.
2:42.3	Speaking of returning, we are incredibly fortunate today to have our returning guest host joining us. Christopher Haciotis, thanks for coming, man.
	...

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