207 pages
English language
Published Aug. 6, 1998 by Viking.
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The making of the Oxford English Dictionary was a monumental 50 year task requiring thousands of volunteers. One of the keenest volunteers was a W C Minor who astonished everyone by refusing to come to Oxford to receive his congratulations. In the end, James Murray, the OED's editor, went to Crowthorne in Berkshire to meet him. What he found was incredible - Minor was a millionaire American civil war surgeon turned lunatic, imprisoned in Broadmoor Asylum for murder and yet who dedicated his entire cell-bound life to work on the English language.
Subjects
- Murray, James Augustus Henry, -- Sir, -- 1837-1915. -- Friends and associates.
- Minor, William Chester.
- Oxford English dictionary.
- New English dictionary on historical principles.
- Psychiatric hospital patients -- Great Britain -- Biography.
- Lexicographers -- Great Britain -- Biography.
- English language -- Lexicography.
- English language -- Etymology.
- United States -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865 -- Veterans -- Biography.