When you pick up a dictionary and look up a word, have you ever stopped to consider who it was that compiled such meticulous work? Was it a scholar, or group of scholars, holed up in a musty backroom somewhere dedicating their lives to the task, or a wide group of volunteers, crowdsourcing an otherwise unthinkable workload? Or was it perhaps, a madman and murderer, working at leisure from the comfort of his asylum cell? In the case of the infamous Oxford English Dictionary, it was all of the above.
SOURCES
Wichester, Simon (2005) The Professor and the Madman. Harper Collins, London, UK.
Johnson, Samuel (1755) A Dictionary of the English Language. W. Strahan, London, UK.
Evening Mail (1872) Murder In Lambeth. Evening Mail, Mon 19 Feb 1872, p7. London, UK.
South Wales Daily Telegram (1872) The Late Shocking Tragedy At Lambeth. South Wales Daily Telegram, Fri 5 April 1872, p4, Wales, UK.
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