OXFORD DICTIONARY

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21462, 8 April 1933, Page 3 (Supplement)

OXFORD DICTIONARY

CRIMINAL LUNATIC'S AID INMATE OF BROADMOOR VALUABLE CONTRIBUTIONS The strange story of a criminal lunatic who, while detained at Broadmoor, gave enormous assistance to the compilers of one of the most important books in existence, was revealed at Oxford recently. Dr. C. T. Onions, editor of the book—" The New English Dictionary," of which an abridged edition has just been published—told the story of this queer lonely figure and his great work jior Oxford. Some years ago an appeal was issued for public help in compiling this 10,000,000 word book, and the editors soon began to find thousands of quotations coming from an unknown contributor, whose address was given cryptically as " Broadmoor, Hants." Who was this anonj'mous helper? asked the Oxford authorities. Surely he must be a savant, some professor with vast knowledge of words. His contributions were so valuable that the editors of the " New English Dictionary " made inquiries, and to their astonishment discovered that their helper was a criminal lunatic in Broadmoor Asjdum, a wealthy man. Then the case was brought to the notice of the Broadmoor authorities. They decided that to further the work the man should be allowed out under supervision in order that |fie could buy books. So from Brpadmoor two men used to go out to haunt bookshops and book auctions —one an inmate, and the other a kindly warder. The man, whom booksellers knew as a keen, scholarly buyer of old books, went back every night to sleep within the grim confines of an asylum. But he took with him scores of books, manj' of them a hundred years old, and in time this prisoner lived with a valuable library and sent the results of his daily labours to Oxford. The man who revealed this strange story, Dr. C. T. Onions, has worked for 38 years on the monumental inventory of the English language, and has been editor of the " New English Diction-, ary " from the letter V onwards. It has been his life's work.

" The complete dictionary has taken 55 years to finish," he said. "It has cost the Oxford University Press £300,000, and it gives all the information it has been humanly possible to obtain about 414,826 English words. Words have been pouring into Oxford at an average rate of 320 a day. In all, 5,000,000 quotations were received by the editors and every single one was read, fded, and indexed."

The dictionary is so valuable that the last time the complete set of ten volumes wpre sold they fetched £IOO. Today, however, the essentials of the dictionary can be had in the abridged edition, which itself has taken 30 years to complete.