The Bizarre Origin of the Oxford English Dictionary

Ridiculous History

iHeartPodcasts

Society & Culture, History

4.2 • 4.7K Ratings

🗓️ 8 November 2018

⏱️ 43 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	We're here, we're live.
0:24.8	Well, we're recording this live.
0:26.8	Welcome to the show, Ridiculous Historians.
0:29.6	My name is Ben.
0:30.9	We are of course joined with our super producer, Casey Pagrum.
0:35.9	My trusty co-host, Noel, is off on some lovely adventures on the other side of the country,
0:41.0	but we'll return very soon.
0:43.4	Speaking of returning, we are incredibly fortunate today to have our returning guest host,
0:50.2	joining us.
0:51.2	Christopher Hosseotus, thanks for coming, man.
0:53.3	Thanks for having me, Ben.
0:54.3	Thanks for having me, Casey.
0:55.6	Noel, whenever you are, whenever you are, however you are, thank you.
1:00.8	Yes, oh man, I can't wait until I hope we can reveal some of the cool stuff that Noel
1:06.9	is working on.
1:07.9	But what I really wish we're happening right now is that we would talk about Noel not
1:12.0	being here and then anyone listening to this podcast would just slowly turn around and
1:17.7	he's standing right behind them.
1:19.2	Oh, that's great.
1:20.2	No.
1:21.2	That's my dream.
1:22.2	That's my dream.
	...

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