Reading the OED: One Man, One Year, 21,730 Pages | 
 enlarge | Author: Ammon Shea
Publisher: Perigee Trade
Category: Book
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Rating:  7 reviews
Sales Rank: 909
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 240
Number Of Items: 1
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Dimensions (in): 8.4 x 5.7 x 0.9
ISBN: 0399533982
Dewey Decimal Number: 423.028
EAN: 9780399533983
ASIN: 0399533982
Publication Date: July 2, 2008
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Product Description
An obsessive word lover s account of reading the Oxford English Dictionary cover to cover.
I m reading the OED so you don t have to. If you are interested in vocabulary that is both spectacularly useful and beautifully useless, read on...
So reports Ammon Shea, the tireless, word-obsessed, and more than slightly masochistic author of Reading the OED. The word lover s Mount Everest, the OED has enthralled logophiles since its initial publication 80 years ago. Weighing in at 137 pounds, it is the dictionary to end all dictionaries.
In 26 chapters filled with sharp wit, sheer delight, and a documentarian s keen eye, Shea shares his year inside the OED, delivering a hair-pulling, eye-crossing account of reading every word, and revealing the most obscure, hilarious, and wonderful gems he discovers along the way.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 2 more reviews...
 There's much more August 6, 2008
Barbara Ann Kipfer (CT USA)
2 out of 8 found this review helpful
After you read this, try WORD NERD, too, where you will find 17,000+ interesting words (the author read the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary twice).
 Great fun for the word lover August 5, 2008
Robert C. Ross (New Jersey)
14 out of 15 found this review helpful
Nicholson Baker has written a wonderful review for "The New York Times" of Ammon Shea's travel report on his journey through the OED in Reading the OED: One Man, One Year, 21,730 Pages. Shea preferred the joys of the printed page to the computerized OED, and he traveled through The Oxford English Dictionary (20 Volume Set) to experience the tactile joys of turning pages. Here's a way to experience the joys of ink and paper by reading Shea's book and by using the computer to enrich the experience.
Baker and Shea both liked the word "acnestis", the part of an animal's back it can't reach to scratch. As a farm boy, we provided scratching posts for cattle and a vet taught me the word. The OED online version gives two First Quotations for the word: 1807 in Edin. Med. & Phys. Dict. II. Suppl. and 1927 Observer 3 Apr., "That spot known to crossword solvers as the acnestis."
Charlotte Brewer's Treasure-House of the Language: The Living OED describes how the OED is using online resources to enrich their entries, including the First Quotations. A quick check of Google Books doesn't turn up an earlier quotation for "acnestis", but as Brewer writes, the OED welcomes contributions. (My personal best -- "jerry built" -- may have pushed back the word history over ten years earlier than the OED's First Quotation.) The 40 odd Google Book entries for "acnestis" range from dictionaries to medical texts to lists of 25,000 words less than ten letters long for use of telegraphers (a surprisingly popular word in the era of telegraphy I thought).
Closer to home, searching on the word "acnestis" on Amazon turns up Braun-Falco's Dermatology, page 991, where one learns that the acnestis can be identified in humans by the "reverse butterfly sign". In What's What: The Encyclopedia Of Pointless Information, page 355, one learns that right handed people tend to scratch with their left hand and vice versa. There's even a volume of poetry on offer by Chris Tutton -- ACNESTIS IN ELYSIUM.
I haven't even touched on the riches on Google itself, with over 680 hits this morning, including Webster's 1828 definition: "ACNESTIS, n. [Gr. a priv. to rub or gnaw.] That part of the spine in quadrupeds which extends from the metaphrenon, between the shoulder blades, to the loins; which the animal cannot reach to scratch." The OED used the word to announce its online version in 2000: "If you can think of something that you don't know the word for, use the proximity search and you may be able to find it - discover that the spot on your shoulder blade that is sometimes difficult to scratch is called an 'acnestis'." Even Google News chimes in from Malaysia on an election cycle: "... , the last five months have felt like an acnestis upon our collective soul; like that little patch of skin on our backs that we just can't reach to scratch ourselves. It's irritating. It's annoying. It's left us reaching and spinning around in circles."
There are many more words to explore following Shea's footsteps through his fascinating book. If interest flags from time to time, one can always take up A. J. Jacobs's The Know-It-All: One Man's Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World, and explore a similar journey through the "Encyclopedia Britannica".
Robert C. Ross 2008
Worth a Read, even if you read the OED August 4, 2008
Bill Gossett (Chicago)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I read Shea's book for the same reason I read How to Measure Anything: Finding the Value of "Intangibles" in Business by Doug Hubbard. In each case, the reader avoids having to study a much more daunting volume of material. After Hubbard's book, I would rate Reading the OED as my favorite "condensed version" book of all time.
But Reading the OED isn't really just Cliff's notes for a big dictionary. Shea brings his own passion, knowledge and sense of fascination to the book. The reader can tell how excited Shea gets to discover a gem of a word for something that we all know about, but never articulated in one congruent string of characters.
Read this and you will find the word-lover in you and you might (like I did) find yourself digging through your own OED hoping to find your own treasures.
 A smooth read. Interested in unusual words? Try this one out! August 3, 2008
Elec enthusiast (Allston, MA)
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
The fact that the author was able to read the entire OED (twenty volumes of it) deserves respect. I had the same dream of reading through any dictionary since my highschool years, but doubted that anyone would dare accomplish that. Maybe English being my second language was a deterrent, but since I haven't read any Korean dictionary in full, it's truly commendable. This book is an extremely smooth read, and anybody who has learned Latin (or Greek) and has some knowledge of how to comprehend the etymology entries in the Oxford Dictionaries (for example, Mac OSX comes with the New Oxford American Dictionary, so about 10% of the population can check them out) can have a blast, albeit a short one. Modern English being a mumbo-jumbo as it is, it is all the more fascinating for that fact. Love your language, and show it the affection you have.
in love with words and books July 31, 2008
Richard Cumming (nida)
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
Ammon Shea's passion for words is contagious. He read the entire Oxford English Dictionary over the course of a year. His caffeine-fueled loquacity about the beauty of words and books is an inspiration. People asked him; why don't you read it on a computer? Shea takes that question as an opportunity to leap on to his soapbox and proclaim the matchless delights of actually turning the pages of real books. Their scent. The magic therein. Larry McMurtry expresses a comparable exultation for the pleasures of genuine tomes in his recent memoir BOOKS. Shea won't be buying the Amazon Kindle any time soon...
Shea's lists of word favorites are made even more delectable by the witticisms invoked by each one. We sense the monstrous task that he has accomplished when he takes us through the OED's letter "S" and the OED's definitions of the word "SET."
So what does one do after finishing such a gargantuan feat? For Shea, the answer is an easy one; read the OED all over again. More slowly. Savoring every juicy morsel therein.
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