Audio only
The Meaning of Everything
The Story of the Oxford English DictionaryBy Simon WinchesterNarrated by Simon WinchesterLength7h 19m
About this audiobook
From the best-selling author of The Professor and the Madman, The Map That Changed the World, and Krakatoa comes a truly wonderful celebration of the English language and of its unrivaled treasure house, the Oxford English Dictionary.
Writing with marvelous brio, Winchester first serves up a lightning history of the English language--""so vast, so sprawling, so wonderfully unwieldy""--and pays homage to the great dictionary makers, from ""the irredeemably famous"" Samuel Johnson to the ""short, pale, smug and boastful"" schoolmaster from New Hartford, Noah Webster. He then turns his unmatched talent for story-telling to the making of this most venerable of dictionaries. In this fast-paced narrative, the reader will discover lively portraits of such key figures as the brilliant but tubercular first editor Herbert Coleridge (grandson of the poet), the colorful, boisterous Frederick Furnivall (who left the project in a shambles), and James Augustus Henry Murray, who spent a half-century bringing the project to fruition. Winchester lovingly describes the nuts-and-bolts of dictionary making--how unexpectedly tricky the dictionary entry for marzipan was, or how fraternity turned out so much longer and monkey so much more ancient than anticipated--and how bondmaid was left out completely, its slips found lurking under a pile of books long after the B-volume had gone to press. We visit the ugly corrugated iron structure that Murray grandly dubbed the Scriptorium--the Scrippy or the Shed, as locals called it--and meet some of the legion of volunteers, from Fitzedward Hall, a bitter hermit obsessively devoted to the OED, to W. C. Minor, whose story is one of dangerous madness, ineluctable sadness, and ultimate redemption.
The Meaning of Everything is a scintillating account of the creation of the greatest monument ever erected to a living language. Simon Winchester's supple, vigorous prose illuminates this dauntingly ambitious project--a seventy-year odyssey to create the grandfather of all word-books, the world's unrivalled uber-dictionary.
Audiobook details
Rating★★★★ 4.1 (8.4K)
Includes Goodreads, LibraryThing, Amazon, StoryGraph
GenreBiography and Memoir, Humor
Length7 hrs 19 mins
Narrated bySimon Winchester
FormatAudiobook
Publish dateJan 13, 2004
LanguageEnglish
More from Simon Winchester
LandSimon Winchester13h 47m3.9 (5.8K)$5 · $0.00
PacificSimon Winchester14h 3m4.1 (6.2K)$33 · $0.00
The Man Who Loved ChinaSimon Winchester9h 14m4.0 (6.3K)$29 · $0.00
The Breath of the GodsSimon Winchester13h 52m3.8 (615)$33 · $0.00
Knowing What We KnowSimon Winchester14h 19m3.9 (2.5K)$33 · $0.00
AtlanticSimon Winchester14h 30m3.9 (13.8K)$33 · $0.00
The PerfectionistsSimon Winchester11h 46m4.2 (9.9K)$29 · $0.00
The Men Who United the StatesSimon Winchester13h 34m4.0 (5.6K)$33 · $0.00
The Alice Behind WonderlandSimon Winchester2h 44m3.7 (1K)$18 · $0.00
The Professor and The MadmanSimon Winchester7h 20m4.0 (178K)$24 · $0.00
A Crack in the Edge of the WorldSimon Winchester12h 31m4.0 (10.6K)$33 · $0.00
KrakatoaSimon Winchester12h 1m4.0 (37K)$8 · $0.00
The Map That Changed the WorldSimon Winchester10h4.0 (21.3K)$7 · $0.00
Bad Fat Black GirlSesali Bowen6h 32m4.7 (2.8K)$24 · $0.00
Send MeMarty Skovlund, Joe Kent8h 10m4.7 (1.6K)$26 · $0.00
John Muir: The Story of My Boyhood and Youth & Letters to a Friend (Annotated)John Muir10h 13m4.7 (1.1K)$0.99 · $0.00
Invisible StormJason Kander6h 48m4.7 (3.2K)$24 · $0.00
Forever BoyKate Swenson9h 27m4.7 (5K)$29 · $0.00
You Are Worth ItKyle Carpenter, Don Yaeger8h 53m4.7 (4.8K)$29 · $0.00
The Happiest Man on EarthEddie Jaku3h 48m4.6 (178K)$7 · $0.00
MotherlandJulia Ioffe17h 52m4.7 (2.5K)$40 · $0.00
Evidence Not SeenDarlene Deibler Rose11h 11m4.6 (11.9K)$29 · $0.00
Where Cowards Go to DieBenjamin Sledge8h 42m4.7 (351)$20 · $0.00
Will You Love Me?Cathy Glass9h 5m4.6 (9.3K)$29 · $0.00
Designing Terry Pratchett’s DiscworldPaul Kidby3h 52m4.7 (343)$20 · $0.00
HostageEli Sharabi5h 25m4.6 (10.8K)$24 · $0.00
Finding MeViola Davis9h 15m4.6 (256.4K)$29 · $0.00
The Dangerous Truth about Today’s MarijuanaLaura Stack CSP, MBA9h 57m4.7 (385)$20 · $0.00
Birdie & HarlowTaylor Wolfe7h 50m4.6 (6.5K)$26 · $0.00
The Lives of BrianBrian Johnson9h 45m4.6 (3.5K)$29 · $0.00
I Am The StormJanice Dean9h4.6 (1.5K)$8 · $0.00
Black History CollectionFrederick Douglass, Harriet Ann Jacobs, Booker T. Washington, W.E.B. Du Bois27h 9m4.6 (2.6K)$18 · $0.00
Just as I AmCicely Tyson16h 8m4.6 (99K)$33 · $0.00
Lost In TranslationAudrey Davis9h 15m4.4 (235)Free
Welcome to PawneeJim O'Heir6h 24m4.5 (5.3K)$24 · $0.00
Going PostalTerry Pratchett13h 36m4.5 (163.8K)$33 · $0.00
Woman UninterruptedBrodie Kane7h 1m4.6 (562)$24 · $0.00
1984 & Animal Farm (Annotated)George Orwell15h 54m4.5 (220.8K)$1.99 · $0.00
Kingsblood Royal (Annotated)Sinclair Lewis14h 42m4.6 (264)$2 · $0.00
This Is Going to HurtAdam Kay5h 47m4.4 (444.7K)$24 · $0.00
You Will Get Through This NightDaniel Howell6h 56m4.4 (11.8K)$24 · $0.00
Northanger Abbey (Annotated)Jane Austen10h 7m4.5 (1.6K)$2 · $0.00
My Dear HamiltonStephanie Dray, Laura Kamoie23h 7m4.4 (63.6K)$46 · $0.00
THE SCREWTAPE LETTERS & SCREWTAPE PROPOSES A TOAST (Annotated)C. S. Lewis5h 6m4.4 (471K)$2 · $0.00
BufferingHannah Hart5h 55m4.4 (12.4K)$24 · $0.00
The Office BFFsJenna Fischer, Angela Kinsey8h 26m4.3 (45.4K)$26 · $0.00
The Collected Stories of Dorothy ParkerDorothy Parker8h 36m4.3 (13.6K)$1 · $0.00
LambChristopher Moore15h 22m4.3 (211.3K)$33 · $0.00
The Importance of Being Earnest (World's Classics Series)Oscar Wilde4h 10m4.3 (467.3K)$1.99 · $0.00
#IMomSoHardKristin Hensley, Jen Smedley7h 19m4.3 (7.3K)$24 · $0.00
Mixed PlateJo Koy8h 18m4.3 (7.1K)$26 · $0.00
Over the TopJonathan Van Ness5h 50m4.3 (87.3K)$24 · $0.00
It Never EndsTom Scharpling8h 53m4.4 (2.3K)$20 · $0.00
You may also like
The MiracleMichael Schuman14h 4m4.2 (299)$33 · $0.00
The Ambuja StoryNarotam Sekhsaria13h 59m4.5 (830)$33 · $0.00
Jefferson and the Rights of ManDumas Malone18h 55m4.3 (1K)$30
Basic Economics, Fourth EditionThomas Sowell23h 51m4.4 (16.4K)$35 · $0.00
Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors and Architects - All 10 VolumesGiorgio Vasari96h 24m4.3 (1.3K)$1.99 · $0.00
Benjamin FranklinKathleen Krull1h 59m4.1 (1.5K)$15
The Republic (Annotated)Plato25h 27m4.1 (261K)$2 · $0.00
A Personal Journey through the World of SportsJohn Rayburn10h 19m$25
William HarveySir D'Arcy Power4h 30m3.8 (28)$1 · $0.00
Cowboys and IndiesGareth Murphy15h 3m4.0 (375)$23
Don’t Tell the PresidentJean Becker, Tom Collamore9h 15m3.9 (74)$29 · $0.00
Pilots of the RepublicArcher Butler Hulbert4h 17m$2 · $0.00
Christopher ColumbusMildred Stapley Byne5h 20m4.0 (49)$2 · $0.00
Ten Years in Washington: Inside Life and Scenes in Our National Capital as a Woman Sees ThemMary Clemmer18h 53m4.0 (32)$1 · $0.00
Lives of Boulton and Watt. Principally from the Original Soho MssSamuel Smiles16h 15m4.3 (25)$1 · $0.00
A Character of the Province of MarylandGeorge Alsop3h 15m3.7 (29)$1 · $0.00
Letters from China and JapanHarriet Alice Chipman Dewey, John Dewey5h 5m$2 · $0.00
BridgesVictoria Charles2h 6m4.5 (10)$12 · $0.00
The Life of HarkhufScriptural Research Institute1h 8m$3.50 · $0.00
Lives of the Engineers (Annotated)Samuel Smiles13h 15m4.5 (12)$2 · $0.00