I read Reading the O.E.D. — One Man, One Year, 21730 pages many months ago, and it has been stuck in my craw ever since. Hopefully a little blogging will get it out of my system, and serve as a Biohazard warning to doe-eyed readers.

As quickly as possible, my complaints:
* The author is immensely dull, as a person, as a lover of words and as a writer.
* The actual definitions from the OED are rarely used, possibly for copyright reasons — although there is a big ad for OED.com at the end of the book, suggesting that the Oxford University Press greenlit the project. Instead, Boring McDullpants usually gives his summary of the definition, followed by an unfunny observation.
* More frequently than you can imagine, he exults, “Can you believe that such a wonderful word exists? Simply that it exists is wonderful. Truly, wonderful. Gosh, that it… just… exists makes me so happy. Now, let me tell you a boring story about my life…”
* Each chapter covers a letter of the alphabet, beginning with a few pages of dreary moaning about his life — at least the guys from Word Freak were semi-social — followed by a selection of the words he found noteworthy.
* The “interesting” words he selects are all Capitalized, for some reason, even though few of them are capitalized in use; that a lifelong lover of dictionaries could allow or commit such a distracting and simple error says a lot about whether he’s done anything but flip pages all these years.
* Even though I hated 80% of the book, I’m grouchy that it’s so short. The man has the nerve to read every word in the English language that begins with X and choose only four words for discussion. Only three from all of the Ys (yepsen, yesterneve, yuky), six from the Qs, etc.
At this point it will help to give an example of a citation as it appears in Reading the O.E.D., including his Wildean thoughts on it:
Quaesitum (n.) The answer to a problem; the thing that is looked for.
It is a proven fact that if you use a big fancy word like quaesitum to describe your silly everyday problems it will be much more satisfying to solve them. At least that’s what I’ve heard.
He’s chosen a dull word. He’s given no etymology that might make the word come alive. He’s capitalized a word unnecessarily. His single creative contribution is a smudge of shopworn comedy which, trust me, is exactly on par with every other jokey fillip he attempts. Ugh.
Enough. I resolved months ago that I would try to salvage something from this experience by rescuing a few of the better words from his oafish paws.
accismus – an insincere refusal of a thing that is desired
advesperate – to approach evening
agathokakological – made up of both good and evil
agelastic – a person who never laughs
airling – a person who is both young and thoughtless
Balaamite – one who is religious for the sake of monetary gain
bedinner – to treat to dinner
bedswerver – an unfaithful spouse
bowelless – having no bowels; lacking in mercy or compassion
constult – to act stupidly together
curtain-lecture — “A reproof given by a wife to her husband in bed” according to Samuel Johnson’s dictionary
disasinate – to deprive of stupidity
boree – one who is bored
flingee – a person at whom something is flung
elozable – readily influenced by flattery
essoiner – a person who offers an essoin, or an excuse for the absence of another
fleeten – having the color of skim milk
frauendienst – an exaggerated sense of chivalry toward women
goat-drunk — made lascivious by alcohol
mawdlen-drunk — “when a fellowe will weepe for kindnes in the midst of his Ale, and kisse you, saying; By God Captaine I loue thee, goe thy waies thou dost not thinke so often of me as I do of thee, I would (if it pleased God) I could not loue thee so well as I doo, and then he puts his finger in his eie, and cries.”
grimthorpe – to restore or renovate an ancient building with excessive spending rather than with skill
gulchin – a little glutton
homodoxian – a person who has the same opinion as you
killcrop – a brat who never ceases to be hungry, and was popularly thought to be a fairy that was substituted for the real child
lipoxeny – the deserting of a host by the parasites that have been living on it
misdevout – devout in an inappropriate way
miskissing – kissing that is wrong
nastify – to render nasty; to spoil
natiform – buttock-shaped
opsigamy – marrying late in life
paracme – the point at which one’s prime is past
pessimum – the worst possible conditions
petrichor – the pleasant loamy smell of rain on the ground, especially after a long dry spell
postvide – to make plans for an event only after it has occurred
preantepenult – [ultimate, penultimate, antepenultimate and then this one]
psithurism – the whispering of leaves moved by the wind
quag – to shake (said of something soft or flabby)
rhypophagy – the eating of filth or disgusting matter
scrupulant – a person who is overly conscientious about confessing his or her sins
short-thinker — one whose thoughts do not carry him far into a subject
supersaliency – “the jumping of the male for the act of copulation”
toe-cover — a present that is both useless and inexpensive
tricoteuse – a woman who knits; specifically, a woman who during the French Revolution would attend the guillotinings and knit while the heads were rolling
umbriphilous – fond of the shade
unbepissed – not having been urinated on; unwet with urine
vulpeculated – robbed by a fox
yepsen – the amount that can be held in two hands cupped together; also, the two cupped hands themselves
Now, wasn’t that list kind of fun? I’m not enough of an egotist even on my stupid blog to think that I can add something funny or insightful to each of these, because they are beautiful and funny in their own right. But this drone got an advance from a publisher for his stunt — read the whole thing in a year, and then bitch about it. Yay book sales!
The final thing I’ll mention is the author’s relentless negativity. He gripes about anything and everything: scientists, statesmen, lovers, men, women, children, crowds, travelogue authors and himself with a bullheaded pessimism you’d expect from someone slouching in a bar, not someone paid to read and write about one of our finest cultural achievements. (Note: For about a year, I used wordpress categories to track how many of my blog posts were “plaudits” and how many were “scorn”. Turns out I love 8 things for every 3 I hate.)
The front cover has a snippet from a review by Nicholson Baker of the NYTBR: “Shea has walked in the wildwood of our gnarled, ancient speech and returned singing incomprehensible sounds in a language that turns out to be our own.” Now that’s a book I’d like to read.






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