June 1998 newsletter

Most users of the OED have, at some point or another, paused to dwell on the audacity of its original conception and the tenacity required for its execution. The notion that the whole of the English language could be charted in a multi-volume work based on quotation evidence from across the centuries, first put forward by the Philological Society in the 1850s, was as ambitious as any of the great engineering projects of the period. That this enormous body of quotation evidence should for the most part have been collected by voluntary readers seems unthinkable in the current climate of commercial pressure. Yet James Murray's first appeal for readers drew a generous response from both leisured and professional scholars.

One of the most productive of these was an American surgeon and inmate of Broadmoor Asylum, William Minor. In this issue of the Newsletter, writer and journalist Simon Winchester gives us a fascinating glimpse into James Murray's relationship with Dr Minor in a prelude to his book The Surgeon of Crowthorne (U.S. The Professor and the Madman).

Elsewhere in this issue we attempt to explain how we actually go about the task of revising and updating the OED, by providing a brief description of the responsibilities of the OED's various editorial and research groups; Alan Hartley, a reader and researcher for the etymology group, describes some of the discoveries made while investigating the history of maritime and nautical terminology; and Jenny McMorris, the OED's archivist, comes up with more treasures from the Archives.