Let’s Go Out Tonight: Getting Wordy — August 11, 2008

EXTRA-LONG READ The Oxford English Dictionary wasn’t the first dictionary that author Ammon Shea read cover to cover, but it’s certainly the most impressive: The OED is composed of a hefty 21,730 pages in 20 volumes, and includes detailed etymologies for more than 300,000 entries. Mr. Shea paced himself during his marathon reading session. Over the course of a year, the author worked through the behemoth lexicon at the rate of eight to 10 hours a day, five days a week. Tonight, Mr. Shea discusses his lost year and his resulting book, “Reading the OED” (Perigee Books), with an editor at large of the Oxford English Dictionary, Jesse Sheidlower, at the recently renamed McNally Jackson Booksellers in NoLIta. Expect that these two avowed logophiles will dig deep into the OED to discuss some of its most spectacular entries (petrichor, n., “the pleasant loamy smell of rain on the ground especially after a long dry spell”), those less than spectacular (fleesen, adj., “having the color of skim milk”), and everything between. One thing’s certain: There will be no onomatomania (v., “vexation with being unable to find the right word”) at McNally’s tonight.