Reading the OED: One Man, One Year, 21,730 Pages | 
 enlarge | Author: Ammon Shea
Publisher: Perigee Trade
Category: Book
List Price: $21.95
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Rating:  14 reviews
Sales Rank: 2191
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 9 more reviews...
 I don't believe it!! October 11, 2008
Bullwinkle495 (California)
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
OK, I gave this book 5 stars, because I didn't read it, and did not want my critical comment to detract from what was perhaps an honest effort.
But I own the OED, and I personally do not see how someone can simply go forward and read every definition, quote (many of which are written in Old English and almost impossible to decipher), and sense of simple words in ONE YEAR. That's about 60 pages a day. Now I LOVE my OED, and I have spent hours poring over its glorious and mysterious words and scholarly source quotes. But people, we are talking about 21,730 pages of hard-core word definitions and quotes! That's gotta be some world record.
How do we KNOW he read it? Just because he lifted a few words, and sounds
rather geeky? I think he's just trying to sell a book. And as much as I love the OED, it does not have all the joys and sorrows of a story or book, as Shea says. I wonder what words made him cry? The OED is intense, deep, intellectual and challenging. One can learn about the history of language and peoples by reading the OED. But for Shea to claim that it evokes the same emotions as great literature makes me wonder about this man's past reading accomplishments.
So, although it is exciting for us word buffs to think that someone read the whole OED in a year, I just don't buy it. As I said, much of the early quotes are lifted from Old or Middle English, and therefore did Shea "skim" these, or did he try and figure out what "Quarn he carmen be, wimen or barn" meant? I say he skimmed a lot. Or just read over things he could not possibly understand. Also, the pronunciation guide to my OED has about 50 characters in it (most of which are schwa-like sounds), so I wonder if Shea memorized the characters or made a cheat-sheet (like me)? And though I'm a bit jealous as his being able to afford a brand-new OED ($900 retail) and have a whole year off to read it, I don't let
that interfere with my sincere disbelief at his accomplishing, in any meaningful way, what he said he has done. Just like someone claiming to have seen a UFO, there is no test, or court of law, to hold him accountable to the truth of what he says; we are simply to believe him. I really want to believe him, but I've read the OED for hours, and I know what it's like. So I don't.
 A Walk (Through the Dictionary) Not Spoiled! October 5, 2008
Nyghtewynd (St. Louis, MO)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Shea produces here a very entertaining and enlightening glance at both a dictionary that is so large that many homes don't have a shelf that can hold it all as well as a glimpse into the madness of someone crazy enough to want to read such a book. Sure, you'll learn a few new words and laugh at a lot of words that you didn't know existed, but at the same time you see the workings of a human being who's excited by an activity which many would consider the definition of "boring". The author injects the dictionary with personality and intrigue, and it makes for a very good, quick read. Absolutely worth your time.
Fun with Words September 22, 2008
Colleen Frost
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Each chapter begins with the author's thoughts on reading, dictionaries, and his daily routine as a reader of dictionaries. Then he comments on words beginning with each letter of the alphabet; as I read, I kept thinking, "How great that there's a word for that!" His commentary on the words had me laughing out loud and reading selections to my husband and kids, who love now being able to use "fard" correctly in conversation.
"The Letter 'I' Tastes Like It Is Full Of Capers, And I Hate Capers." August 30, 2008
Robert I. Hedges
14 out of 15 found this review helpful
The concept of reading the OED cover to cover simply boggles the mind, but Ammon Shea is a unique person: a man so devoted to dictionaries that 21 of the 25 boxes of belongings he brought with him when moving into his latest apartment were full of them. Shea shares with the reader insights both personal and linguistically entertaining throughout the book, and discusses many of his favorite words from the OED.
Some of my favorite words discussed in "Reading the OED" follow.
"Advesperate" means "to approach evening." I join Shea in hoping I never have the need to exclaim "Let's hurry! It's advesperating!"
"Natiform" means "buttock-shaped." I do not know when I will need this word, but I have filed it mentally under the heading "potentially useful."
"Nastify" means "to render nasty." This is a word that has obvious and numerous uses in discussing contemporary culture.
"Peristeronic" means "suggestive of pigeons," and may be my favorite word in the book inasmuch as I cannot imagine a single time I will ever need this word.
"Tricoteuse" is an even less useful word than peristeronic, in that it means "a woman who knits; specifically, a woman who during the French Revolution would attend the guillotinings and knit while the heads were rolling." Now that's cold.
I was also pleased to discover that "chalcenterous" means "having bowels made of bronze," or alternately, "tough." This is a word that I simply must remember and use at every reasonable opportunity.
Shea is clearly a lover of language, and holds lexicographers and linguists in high regard, but he writes for those of us with smaller vocabularies in an amusing and simultaneously educational manner that is never patronizing. Perhaps the best example of this is the discussion on p. 168 where he discusses the difference in technical words with precise definitions (e.g., "pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanokoniosis," a rare lung disease), and the difficulty of defining small, common words, his favorite example of which is "set." The definition of "set" in the OED takes 25 pages, and covers 155 main senses of the word, some of which have up to 70 subsenses. These are truths that are obvious to lexicographers, but are uncommonly recognized outside of professional word-defining circles. These are also the underlying points that make this book so entertaining and worthwhile.
For anyone who loves to read or loves words, this is an absolute necessity. While I doubt I'll ever read the OED, I'm glad that someone has and has written such a clever book about the experience.
A Good Book about a Great Book August 29, 2008
R. Hardy (Columbus, Mississippi USA)
7 out of 7 found this review helpful
The English philosopher Francis Bacon wrote 400 years ago, "Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested: that is, some books are to be read only in parts, others to be read, but not curiously, and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention." Serious novels and nonfiction works must fall into that "read wholly, and with diligence and attention" part. Dictionaries surely fall into the "read only in parts" category. But no one has told Ammon Shea this. Shea is, among other things, a furniture mover in New York City, but he has a lifetime of being enthralled with dictionaries, and his home is bursting with his collection of them. He isn't a lexicographer (but his girlfriend used to be); he doesn't write dictionaries, he reads them. Ten years ago, he read his first dictionary, the _Webster's New International_, with the result that "My head was so full of words that I often had trouble forming simple sentences out loud, and my speech became a curious jumble of obscure words and improper syntax. It felt wonderful, so I went out and bought the sequel, _Webster's Third New International_." The Everest of dictionary reading would have to be reading the whole Oxford English Dictionary, and Shea has done just that, reporting on the experience in _Reading the OED: One Man, One Year, 21,730 Pages_ (Perigee). If you are one of the normal people who uses dictionaries like normal people do, this does not sound like it is going to be very interesting, even if it does sound more interesting than actually reading the _OED_ for yourself.
Surprise! With Shea as a guide, this is a fun journey, and as he has said, now he has read the entire _OED_, you don't have to. "The book in your hands," he says, "contains all the words from the _OED_ that I think people would like to know about, if only they didn't have to read the whole damn dictionary in order to find them." Shea's book consists of an introduction and a conclusion, and between them are twenty-six chapters, each devoted to findings within a letter's listing in the _OED_. Each chapter has a short essay, perhaps not associated with that particular letter, in which Shea tells us about the mechanics of his monumental task, the headaches it gives him, the coffee he powers himself with, the other dictionary enthusiasts he has met, his love of interacting with the physical book rather than just researching the electronic _OED_ (a version he admires for other reasons), and his feelings of joy over finding extraordinary words. His selection of words is indeed delightful, and though he is no Ambrose Bierce, he has tinged his comments on them with wit and a little judicious misanthropy. It is useless to try summarize the book's main contents, which are the words and definitions which Shea wants us to think about, and his comments upon them. Here is just one example of a curious word: Acnestis: on an animal, the point on the back that lies between the shoulders and the lower back, which cannot be reached to be scratched. "I am very glad," he writes, "I found this word early in my reading of the _OED_ - the fact that there existed a word for this thing which previously I had been sure lacked a name was such a delight to me that suddenly the whole idea of reading the dictionary seemed utterly reasonable."
Coming to the end of this book, a reader can enjoy Shea's pleasure at coming to the end of his quest. He has not enjoyed every minute or every page, but he writes lyrically about his enjoyment of the task overall. He explains that the _OED_ is the perfect book for "three a.m. moments", and remarks, "And so three a.m. becomes six, night becomes morning, one cup of coffee becomes four, and the pile of pages shifts from the right to the left as I read my way into the day. In moments like this I am convinced I'll never need another book again." It was, he says, "the most engrossing and enjoyable book I've ever read." The big problem is what to read next? Why, the _OED_ again, only this time he won't push himself to get it done in a year, and without a deadline, he may start at A but he'll let himself get distracted and investigate anything else his reading turns up. Even if you have no intention to imitate Shea, it is a pleasure to read this joyful account of his full absorption in this idiosyncratic task, which might be goofy but is also quietly admirable.
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