The good people at OUPblog asked me to pinch hit for Ben Zimmer yesterday. The very thought of living up to a real live lexicographer sent me into a paroxysm of fear, so I punted, to mix bad sports metaphors, and sent them an interview I did recently with author Ammon Shea.
I had planned to run it in Errata, but Ammon’s most recent book is about reading the OED, all 21,730 pages of it, which he did last year. That heroic effort seemed ideally suited to an OUPblog post, so that’s where it went. I got the book itself the other day, and will post specifically about it closer to its August publication date.
This is the first of what I hope will become a regular feature: the Errata “Legends of Lexicography” interview series.
Nice job, John–excellent interview. 🙂
I’ve never considered the OED to be a read that I just couldn’t set down.
I’m not sure whether Mr. Shea should be congratulated or committed, but I imagine that his book would be more about his deprivations and tribulations during the year in question than about the dictionary itself.
Well, dammit, you’ve got me intrigued.