The Professor and the Madman
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.58 (520 Votes) |
| Asin | : | B0000546SA |
| Format Type | : | |
| Number of Pages | : | 192 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2016-07-15 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
samssis said Words, madness and wonder.. Did you ever wonder just how the Oxford English Dictionary came to be? Simon Winchester, another fine historical novelist, tells the story of this monumental achievement as the life-work of the modest and brilliant scholar, James Murray. When he publishes a call to men of letters to start a compilation of all the words in the English language replete with all the semantics and origins of such words, he begins a twenty year correspondence with a prolific and tireless contributor. This person, Dr. W. Minor, is one of the more tragic and unknown figures of American history. His semantic acumen is only matched by his hughly unfortunate f. "Tragic and Amazing" according to QA. This was the April book for our Library Book Club. Wow! This was a very well written book. I found it to be very interesting and informative. The creation of the Oxford English Dictionary took place before many mental illnesses were officially diagnosed. I found it very interesting that one of the main contributors was a Civil War veteran, Dr. W. C. Minor, a medical doctor who had committed murder and was an inmate at an English asylum for the criminally insane. Today he would probably be diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and treated with medication. Dr. Minor’s story is tragic but it is amazing that he was able to turn his. "A fascinating book, marred by a bad last chapter." according to Martin van Creveld. An absolutely fascinating account of the origins of the largest lexical enterprise in history, the Oxford English Dictionary, as well as the men who initiated it and worked on it.Among the latter, the most interesting was William Minor. An American and a doctor by training, he served in the US Army during the last years of the Civil War when he went through, and participated in, some gruesome events indeed. These events may or may not have triggered his paranoia which caused him to murder an innocent laborer in London, where he moved after the war's end. Whereupon he was judged insane and committed to an asylum for life. It was from
Minor, had submitted more than ten thousand. When the committee insisted on honoring him, a shocking truth came to light: Dr. The compilation of the OED, begun in 1857, was one of the most ambitious projects ever undertaken. W C. Minor, an American Civil War veteran, was also an inmate at an asylum for the criminally insane. . As definitions were collected, the overseeing committee, led by Professor James Murray, discovered that one man, Dr. The Professor and the Madman, masterfully researched and eloquently written, is an extraordinary tale of madness, genius, and the incredible obsessions of two remarkable men that led to the making of the Oxford English Dictionary--and literary history
(Running time: 6.5 hours, 6 cassettes) --Lou Schuler. Ultimately, it's hard to say which is more remarkable: the facts of this amazingly well-researched story, or the sound of author Simon Winchester's erudite prose. This unabridged version contains an interview between Winchester and John Simpson, editor of the Oxford dictionary. Jones's reading smoothly transports listeners to the 19th century, reminding us why so many brilliant people obsessively set out to catalogue the English language. British stage actor Simon Jones leads us through this uncommon meeting of minds (the other belonging to self-educated dictionary editor James Murray) at full gallop. The compilation of the Oxford English Dictionary, 70 years in the making, was an intellectually heroi