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Of Murder, Madness and Meaning

© Janet Kay Blaylock

1. deviate vi (1633): to stray esp. from a standard, principle, or topic

2. deviate n (1912): one that deviates from a norm; esp: a person who differs markedly from a group or norm

Simon Winchester’s The Professor and the Madman is not a novel, although it reads like one with its colorful characters and its riveting account of historical events that rival any imaginative plot. Even its luring subtitle suggests a good Victorian mystery: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary. Wait. The making of the Oxford English Dictionary (affectionately referred to as the OED)? What kind of mystery could the drudgery of lexicology possibly conceal?

If The Professor and the Madman is not fiction, why is it appearing in this column on British literature with its focus on novelists? Another mystery? Yet, where would British writers (and others writing in English, admittedly) be without an authoritative reference on proper word usage? I imagine that Viriginia Woolf, who is famous for her obsessive revising of her own work even after its publication, must have heralded the publication of the OED. For where else could she turn to find that perfect, most suitable word? What she would turn (presumably) are the pages of a reputable dictionary, and not only is the OED the most reputable dictionary of the English language, it is also the dictionary of the English language. I would hazard a guess that even James Joyce rejoiced at its publication, finding occasion to research etymologies and definitions while fashioning words of his own.

Winchester writes like a novelist, probing into people’s psyche’s, fleshing out his "characters," and bringing to life the prevailing customs and attitudes of late Victorian England and of Civil War-torn America. The professor of the title is James Murray, the editor who oversaw most of the compilation of the OED, which was begun in 1857 and completed in late 1926. The result of seventy-two years of research, the editors of the OED relied upon volunteers to supply definitions and sample sentences culled from literature of all genres. One of these volunteers was a former doctor of medicine, Dr. William Minor, who provided more than 10,000 definitions. At the time, he was incarcerated in an insane asylum for the murder of George Merrett, whom he killed in the early morning of February 17, 1872 in a more violent and poverty stricken part of London. What led a once esteemed doctor from New Haven, Connecticut and surgeon in the Civil War to the mean streets of London and to murder?

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