THE GREAT ENGLISH DICTIONARY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 11686, 22 June 1901, Page 2 (Supplement)

THE GREAT ENGLISH DICTIONARY.

SOME FACTS AND FIGURES.

In- these days of dictionaries and encyclopaedias, a few facts and figures relating to the compilation of the great Oxford English Dictionary, which appear in an interview with Dr. Murray, its editor, in the May number of the Temple Magazine, will not be wanting in fascination, to the student of statistics. Dr. Murray thus describes the scope of the dictionary: — " It seeks not merely to record every word that has been used in the language for the last eight hundred years, with its written form and signification, and the pronunciation of the current words, but to furnish a biography of each word, giving as nearly as possible the date of its birth or first known appearance, and, in the case of an obsolete word or sense, of its last appearance, the source from which it was actually derived, the form and sense with which it entered the language or is first found in it, and the successive changes of form and development of sense which it has since undergone. All these particulars are derived from historical research ; they are an induction of facts gathered by the widest investigation of the written monuments of the language. For the purposes of this historical illustration more than live millions of extracts have been made, by two thousand volunteer readers, from innumerable books representing the English literature of all ages, and' from numerous documentary records. From these, and the further researches for which they provide a starting point, the history of each word is deduced and exhibited.''

The quotations illustrating the distinctive uses of words average twelve against one in Dr. Johnson's Dictionary. A student of the Oxford Dictionary has made the following ingenious calculations, based on the dimensions of the work, from "A" to " Infer," but excluding " Graded" to the end of "G":~

Allowing lor short columns, it will be found that as many as 16.516 columns, 10£ inches long, have now appeared. If these columns, each 21, inches wide, were set on end the type would extend for upwards of 2' 2 miles—464s yards, or say : — Nearly four times as high" as Snowdon. Only 602 yards short "of the height of Mont Blanc.

Over 38 times as high as the top of tho cross of St. Paul's Cathedral.

Nearly 69 times the height of the Monument.

_ More than 14 times as high as the Eiffel Tower.

Upwards of 15 times the length of London Bridge.

Almost 100 times round the dome of the reading-room of the British Museum. If a maypole were made of the Monument there would be sufficient type to provide 69 strings, each 202 feet long. A single column of type with the lines placed end to end. would measure seven yards two feet. The lines already in print, end to end would reach for about 72 miles, or a little further than from Charing Cross to Folkestone. A single column, takeu haphazard, contains 4248 letters, punctuation marks, etc., and 746 words, including 59 abbreviated words: taking this column as a basis the dictionary already contains about 70.161.384 letters and 12,321,181 words. Not the least remarkable feature of the dictionary is its price. For a penny a purchaser receives one yard one foot "and eight odd inches of solid printed matter, 2!, inches wide, on unexceptionable paper, turned out id the best manner of the University Press.