Reflection

THE TERRIBLE UNDERTOW OF WORDS

In most homes, there is a dictionary. It might be pocket sized or large and cumbersome. It might sit on a shelf for years collecting dust or it might be used daily, especially by kids who are writing essays or crossword puzzle addicts.

When I was recovering recently from a nasty bout of bronchitis, I decided to read Simon Winchester’s The Meaning of Everything, a story about the making of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED). This fascinating book gave me an appreciation for the people who publish dictionaries, especially the OED. The most recent printed edition, published in 1989, contains 20 volumes.

Work began on the Oxford English Dictionary in 1861. James Murray, one of the originators of the dictionary, became editor in March 1879 and worked on the project until his death in 1915. He is reported as taking as much as three hours to proofread a single page. As he was proofreading a page, more pages would arrive to be proofread. Winchester quotes Murray as saying “the terrible undertow of words seemed to present an impossibly powerful and ever running tide; to try to halt it was a never ending battle that an ordinary mortal could not hope to reverse or win.”

Once when swimming in the Pacific, I was caught in an undertow. I managed to swim to a breakwall where some Asian youths pounced on my trembling body and hauled me to safety. It was a frightening experience, one which I hope never to repeat.

Most of us have experienced what Murray called the “terrible undertow of words”—at a dinner party where someone monopolizes the conversation, at a banquet where the main speaker goes on forever, or at a religious service where the minister or priest or rabbi rambles on endlessly—catching us in an impossibly powerful and ever running tide. Trying to halt it “is a never ending battle that an ordinary mortal could not hope to reverse or win.”

We can always turn off an undertow of words we don’t care to hear, but we can never halt “the terrible undertow of words” of a living language such as English. Living languages thrive on the reckless undertow of words, giving us new words, new idioms, new phrases, new definitions, and even new slang expressions. Consequently, the dictionary, even the OED, will always be out of date and in need of revision. As Winchester says about the OED, “It wasn’t really finished. It never could be, it never would be, and it never will be.”

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