Ch. 1: Taking the measure of it all – the “need” for a dictionary based on historical principles that is not also a kind of encyclopedia or almanac (as some of the pre-Johnson dictionaries). The Philological Society as the impetus. Philology as an occupation of the leisured and educated class. Winchester doesn’t give quite enough background on the theory of language history and change that underwrites the project of the OED from its earliest days.
What we are seeing is the (slow) impact of scientific Indo-European philology on the study of vernacular languages. The study of Latin and Greek had long been fairly systematic and evidence based, because they were working from a long tradition of Greek and Latin study almost unbroken since the Classical era. But it was a revolution in perspective after William Jones figured out that Sanskrit, Latin, and Greek, Germanic (including English) and Celtic were all somehow connected by a lost “common source.”

Slowly, more scientific comparative philological practice came into place. It meant, for one thing, realizing that “Western” and “Non-western” languages (Hindi, e.g.) were related. This was of course very convenient for the British, as it tended to rationalize their Imperial ambitions in India and elsewhere.

Ch. 2: Construction of the Pigeon holes: the slow professionalization of lexicography. Furnivall was up to the task intellectually, but he was a dilletante, a man with too many interests to devote himself to it. Murray approached it with both enormous (self-taught) knowledge, intellect, but above all, industry and organization (which the project had lacked). Eventually, it became his full time job. It’s important to note that this professionalization was a trend in scholarly study of literature as well. Most early scholars of literature were either wealthy aristocrats or churchmen with surplus knowledge and spare time.

Ch.3: What differences do you linguists note between earlier philological study and contemporary linguistic study?

Ch. 4: Battling the undertow. The language is bigger and more complex than any speaker or writer imagines. Lexicographers routinely underestimate the time needed to complete their projects (I have examples to relate here that are better discussed in class).

Ch. 5: The untrodden forest: Murray: he and his lexicographer colleagues were going “where no white man’s ax has been before us” – what is the source of that metaphor? How is the making of the OED related to British Imperialism (then at its height) – exploration, conquest, British empire is global, English was becoming a global language. . . If Britain could conquer India, East Africa, the South Pacific, why not its own language? (Dedication to Q. Victoria). We can’t imagine something like the OED being started in the post-war years, when Britain’s power was substantially diminished. . .

The “center” of English well-defined (250). Why is SE (a minority dialect) the “center” according to Winchester? The desire to “record and fix them all in time” is a “human” preoccupation? Is this need to classify, record, and master human, or mostly a cultural trait of the Anglo/English-speaking world?