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Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Geek / Books The Wordiest Word-Nerd-Gasm There Ever Was, Or: What I Want for Christmas

Posted by Marjorie Skinner on Wed, Jul 8, 2009 at 12:20 PM

The Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary drops this coming fall (just in time for Christmas!), and it's about the sweetest thing a word-nerd ever did see: Published by the Oxford University Press, it's been in the works for 44 years, and includes nearly every word in the English vocabulary from medieval times to the present day-ish (2003 is the official cut-off) in chronological order along with their dates of usage, and according to this tease of an article containing an excerpt from the entry for "trousers" (also known at various points as "indescribables," "sitinems," and "round-me-houses," I'm thrilled to learn), it is the largest thesaurus of all time and the first historical thesaurus in any language, EVER. Which makes OUP's pre-order asking price of $395 worth it, considering it is something you would (unless you and yours are idiots) pass down for generations to come, like, in your wills—especially the first edition. (Psst: I hate to say it, but it's on sale at Amazon for $316, or you could make a $106.75 donation to a beloved local institution by pre-ordering it through Powell's for $422.75.)

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Best. Thesaurus. Ever.

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