Replay: Simon Winchester shares Five Things He's Learned about the Joy of Dictionaries
Check out the first five minutes of his recent class.
“I have been passionate about dictionaries all my life. That passion was profoundly deepened when I discovered the story of the Oxford English Dictionary and the unlikely collaborators who created it, a tale I first told in The Professor and the Madman and then expanded upon in The Meaning of Everything. Dictionaries have provided me with a lifetime of amusement and edification. I look forward to sharing my passion and my discoveries with you!”
– Simon Winchester, Five Things I've Learned about the Joy of Dictionaries
Simon Winchester is the acclaimed author of Knowing What We Know: The Transmission of Knowledge From Ancient Wisdom to Modern Magic Land as well as How the Hunger for Ownership Shaped the Modern World, and The Map that Changed the World. He’s also crafted the widely acclaimed story of the making of the Oxford English Dictionary, The Professor and the Madman. Here’s the first five minutes of our 90-minute class in which Simon thrillingly shares the Five Things He’s Learned about the history, art, and heart of dictionary-making.
Five Things I’ve Learned about the Joy of Dictionaries offers a deep exploration into the world of dictionaries, covering topics such as the creation of the first dictionary, the decision-making process for word inclusion, the addition and removal of words, the impact of dictionaries on culture, and intriguing aspects of the English language.
If you’re a lover of words, ideas, and the books that preserve them, this class is for you.
In a career spanning five decades, Simon has been a geologist, a journalist, and a correspondent based in Northern Ireland, the United States, India, Hong Kong, and New York. He was awarded an Order of the British Empire (OBE) for his services to journalism and literature. He lives in Massachusetts and New York City.
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