On This Day in History: February 1

The Oxford English Dictionary

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English is a fucked-up language; it can be mastered through tough thorough thought, though. You would think if anywhere had a handle on it, it would be Oxford University. When they decided to compile a dictionary, it took 23 years just to complete the first section: A to Ant.

--On This Day in History, Shit Went Down: February 1, 1884--

He told him that he loved only him. You can place the word “only” anywhere in that sentence. I learned a new word writing this piece: fascicle. “A separately published installment of a book.” It’s also a bundle of nerve or muscle fibers godfuckingdammit this language. Speaking of language, get a load of the initial title of the project: A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles: Founded Mainly on the Materials Collected by The Philological Society. Not sure why “The” was capitalized. It was a long time ago. We don’t do that anymore unless it’s the first word, which it eventually became with The Oxford English Dictionary.

Work began in 1857. A to Ant wasn’t published until February 1, 1884. Eleven years later they finally gave it the aforementioned modern name, unofficially. Thirty-three years after that they finally finished the fucking thing. If you suck at math, it was 1928 when it was all done, 71 motherfucking years to complete this project. But it wasn’t just one book that you have from decades ago sitting lonely on your bookshelf because everyone uses the internet now unless you’re using the Scrabble Dictionary to challenge Bart Simpson on his use of kwyjibo. Holy shit spell check didn’t underline that. Bill Gates must be a fan of The Simpsons. Continues below …

I’m a fan of The Simpsons and I pay for Disney so I can binge the Halloween specials. If you’re a fan of my writing and want to binge all the paid content, click the green button.

Where was I? Oh, yeah. It was 10 volumes, with Volumes 9 and 10 split into two parts. The final fascicle was published in April of 1928, covering Wise to the end of W. Then the final volume came out covering V to the end of Z, not having been released as a fascicle. Fascicle fascicle fascicle. I won’t say “now it sounds weird” because it did from the first instance.

Then the supplements followed. The second edition, released in 1989, was 20 volumes. The third edition is in process because we keep adding words. A shit-ton of new words were added in 2021 alone, including “anti-vaxxer” and “staycation.” The head of Oxford University Press said it’s unlikely that the third edition will ever see print. They’re solely gonna internet that shit.

But why is it so fucking long? That’s because it’s a “historical dictionary.” We’re not just talking definitions, but the development of forms and meanings of words for those scholars who are interested in that shit. Despite being a big motherfucker—and yes that word is in the OED—it’s not the largest dictionary. In terms of number of pages, the Dutch dictionary is believed to be the biggest. It also wasn’t the first. There were much smaller English language dictionaries that preceded the OED. And the Italians, French, Spanish, and Chinese all had completed dictionaries before Oxford got to work on theirs.

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