Who Made the Oxford English Dictionary? theatlantic.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from theatlantic.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
An excerpt from Dictionary People investigates the story of amateurs collaborating alongside the academic elite to create a foundation for our vocabulary.
Did you know these words never made it out of the dictionary? khaleejtimes.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from khaleejtimes.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
It took more than 70 years and tons of volunteer labor to create “the definitive record of the English language” including an assist from a murderer. Get to know the Oxford English Dictionary better.
By John Colapinto
As a genre, body part nonfiction would seem to have run its course. We have natural histories of the heart and brain, the skin, the sensory organs. The intestines have a best seller. The penis has a cultural history, and the vagina has its own bible. But wait, you are probably not thinking, where is the 300-page book devoted to the larynx?
It has arrived, and it is exemplary. The author, the New Yorker staff writer John Colapinto, is an amateur rock vocalist with a polyp on his cords. âThis Is the Voiceâ begins with his story, but quickly charges off in surprising and consistently fascinating directions. I did not, for example, expect: national elocutionists, Kim Kardashianâs vocal fry, the last Vatican castrato, the telling silence of lizards, Alexa or the delightful, data-based revelation that humans can reliably hear a smile.