Many avid readers know the sense of sadness that can come along with the end of a book. For Ammon Shea, that feeling led him to an idea. Why not read one of the longest books out there, The Oxford English Dictionary?
“I figured if I was reading a book that was almost 22,000 pages long, that that feeling would take significantly longer to come around,” Shea told Renee Montagne….
But Shea says that what also made the reading enjoyable for him was the chance to unearth “wonderful words that are kind of hidden in the depths of the English vocabulary that we don’t come across.”
And once he has learned about a new word, Shea said, he finds himself thinking about the concept it describes more often.
An example, he says, is “petrichor,” a word for the scent that rises from pavement after rain has begun to fall.
“It’s a beautiful smell,” Shea said. “I’ve always loved that smell, when it first starts raining.”
Read or listen to it all (Hat tip: Elizabeth).
For those who’d like to do this but don’t have $3,000 to spend, you can get the entire OED in one volume for $300 or so. If I remember correctly, 9 regular pages are reduced down and reproduced on one page of the one-volume set. And yes, it comes with a magnifying glass. 🙂
And it is devilishly annoying to try to read it with the magnifying glass, too. I recommend going to a college library, if you can. I remember that the office of the English dept. at UGA had a full set, lovely to behold. 🙂
My wife bought me the 20-volume OED for my 40th birthday several years ago.
I am quite possibly the most blessed man in the world!
My last Episcopal parish bought the 20 volume OED as a present for our rector. I don’t remember the occasion, but I remember the look on his face. 🙂
#4: Lost for words?
Pretty much – sort of bewildered, enchanted disbelief.
#6, that would pretty much sum up what I was feeling! 🙂
Of course, books do that to me. I actually began weeping in awe and wonder on first walking into the Long Library at Trinity College, Dublin a couple of years ago. (Our middle daughter – 10 at the time – walked up to me as I stood there gaping, teary-eyed in awe at the sight, and said, “Daddy, this is what you think heaven is like!”
My eyes are even tearing up at the recollection as I write this….
Todd,
Yep, that’s what I think heaven would be like, too.
Imagine — all the books that were lost to us would be there as well as those we know of. Wow!
Jim Elliott <><