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The Tragic, Twisted Story of the Professor and the Madman
Murder, Insanity, and…the Making of The Oxford English Dictionary?
Alright, let’s talk about dictionaries, psychoses, and murder!
Oh man, I had completely forgotten about this book until I was going through my notes while practicing my regular spaced repetition to help me remember everything I read.
But today’s book, The Professor and the Madman, made a big impression on me a few years ago when I first read it.
Which is weird, because it’s about the making of the original Oxford English Dictionary, which should be boring, right?
But apparently, when the Oxford people were soliciting help from readers all over the world who were invited to contribute words and definitions, they got tens of thousands of submissions from this guy named W.C. Minor.
(This is a true story, by the way)
Anyway, so the head of the project gets curious about who this “Minor” character is, he looks him up, and he discovers that Minor’s actually an inmate at this insane asylum in the U.S.A.
You could argue that all of America is now an insane asylum, but hey, back then, this was kinda unusual.
Anyway.
