"From the Ox's Mouth"

I am currently in the midst of reading the book pictured here, Simon Winchester’s The Meaning of Everything: The Story of the Oxford English Dictionary.
This book is wonderfully written and wildly interesting. It is really a history not only of the monumental Oxford, (commonly known as The OED) but also of the predecessors.... Samuel Johnson’s dictionary, Noah Webster’s, and Charles Richardson’s. All of these were a phenomenal feat in themselves, and each unique.... but none were of the magnitude of the Oxford, which would exceed its own completion deadline by quite a few decades. It was projected to take ten years. It took fifty-four. It was estimated to contain 7,000 pages. It ended up being 16,000.
The cost of production was 33 times what was forecasted, at its outset. (Makes one wonder if this was perhaps a government-funded project, but no, it was not.)
Today, the Oxford English Dictionary (2nd Edition) is a 20-Volume shelfbender, weighing in at a whopping 150 pounds! It contains 21,728 pages and defines over half a million words, meticulously tracing the usage, meaning, and history of each word from 1150 AD to the present day (well, 1989 actually)... and contains over 2.4 million illustrative quotations.
Truly, and I mean TRULY..... I want these things.
CD Rom be damned. [Even though the “search-engine” function would be pretty cool...]
I want the books.

So.... a wonderful dovetailing of events took place today as I was sitting at Chapters drinking my own body weight in coffee and reading this Winchester book, when over the PA system is announced:

“From The Ox’s Mouth”
Secrets And Lies From The World of Dictionaries.

Have you ever pondered the mysterious world of the dictionary?
Have you ever asked such questions as:
Why are there so many dictionaries?
Big vs. Small: What’s In, What’s out?
How did the Oxford Dictionary evolve?
For some lively answers please join us as Brent Starling from Oxford University Press is here at Chapters to answer your questions. There will be discussions at 3 p.m. and 5 p.m.

Needless to say, I just attended the 3 p.m. version of the above event.
It was grand. I was salivating.
Mr. Starling was very informative, and I asked all manner of questions, including one about my own previously venerated Funk & Wagnalls 2-Volume dealie that I have used and relied upon for ages. [See my blog, entitled “Dictionary Porn” in the archives section: May 1st, 2005].
Brent makes me even more convinced that I need to switch horses.
I want the OED.
I want it I want it I want it.
And he (this is the inside scoop folks).... he informs me in a bit of a tete a tete after-discussion, that in the year 2010, a completely new edition is coming out...... it will probably be somewhere around 24 volumes..... containing all of the zillions of words created in the 90’s and the new century.... you know... the words we dare not live without understanding.... like... “bling-bling” and “blog” and “hilaryduff” and stuff!
So I am setting my sights. Starting a fund. Please, if you would like to contribute to this non-profit enterprise, let me know....
I want it I want it I want it.
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