The Birth of the Lexicon, Part I: The Scottish Polymath

(Infinitesimal Impossibilities 04)

If ever there was a story whose subject was small but whose effect was immense--i.e., the central theme of Infinitesimal Impossibilities--this would be that story.

We don't often think about where words come from, and when we do it's usually pretty selective. This is for good reason: the English language has an almost unquantifiable number of words. And yet, back in the 19th century, the first serious endeavors were made to quantify these multitudes of words. The United States came first with the famous Webster's Dictionary (now Merriam-Webster), but the far more comprehensive and complete English dictionary--the Oxford English--would leave a much greater mark.

The task ahead was as daunting as anything, with reality quickly settling in that this accomplishment wouldn't require normal men to complete. Thankfully, the two men at the center of this story were anything but normal. The first part of this tale covers one of them--a Scotsman by the name of James Murray--who was quite possibly the most brilliant man on the entire British Isles at the time and who hadn't set foot in school since he was 14 years old. While he certainly was passionate about cataloguing the language, little did he realize where this love of language was going to take him and who he would encounter along the way.