The Oxford English Dictionary is one of mankind’s greatest achievements, and yet, curiously, its creators are almost never considered. Who were the people behind this unprecedented book? As Dr. Sarah Ogilvie reveals, they include three murderers, a collector of pornography, the daughter of Karl Marx, a president of Yale, a radical suffragette, a vicar who was later found dead in the cupboard of his chapel, an inventor of the first American subway, a female anti-slavery activist in Philadelphia . . . and thousands of others.

The Dictionary People: The Unsung Heroes Who Created the Oxford English Dictionary is a history and celebration of the many far-flung volunteers who helped define the English language, word by word. Of deep transgenerational and broad appeal, a thrilling literary detective story that, for the first time, unravels the mystery of the endlessly fascinating contributors the world over who, for over seventy years, helped to codify the way we read and write and speak. It was the greatest crowdsourcing endeavor in human history, the Wikipedia of its time.

Along with being a Washington Post Best Book of the Year, a Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction Finalist, and the New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice, responses to the book include: “The pages come alive with humor, surprise, passion, charm, empathy, intrigue, humanness, and love” (Anna Deavere Smith); “This is an exquisitely written book” (Jamaica Kincaid); “An unmissable wonderful achievement” (Stephen Fry); and “Utterly fascinating, entertaining, astonishing, and as clever as a box of monkeys” (Joanna Lumley).

Join Malcolm Clemens Young for a conversation with Ogilvie about the previously untapped archives she discovered and the never-before-heard full story of the making of one of the most famous books in the world.

Watch

Sarah Ogilvie On The Dictionary People | 5×15

The Forum will be posted on our Youtube and Apple Podcast channels.   

About the Guest

Dr. Sarah Ogilvie is a Senior Research Fellow in the Faculty of Linguistics, Philology, and Phonetics at the University of Oxford. She is the Director of Oxford’s MSc in Digital Scholarship. Before Oxford, she taught at Stanford and Cambridge Universities, and worked at Amazon’s innovation lab in Silicon Valley. Dr. Ogilvie is a linguist, lexicographer, and computer scientist who works at the intersection of technology and the social sciences. Her research focuses on lexicography, endangered languages, language documentation, field methods, historical development of language, corpus linguistics, and digital humanities. She directs the Dictionary Lab, a lab for digital research on dictionaries and language. She completed her doctorate in linguistics at the University of Oxford, and is originally from Australia where she studied for a BSc in computer science and pure mathematics at University of Queensland and MA in linguistics at the Australian National University. Dr. Ogilvie is a former editor of the Oxford English Dictionary and has written books on its history and making, including The Dictionary People: the unsung heroes who created the Oxford English Dictionary (Chatto & Windus (UK), Knopf (USA), 2023) and Words of the World: A Global History of the Oxford English Dictionary (Cambridge University Press, 2013).

About the Moderator 

The Very Rev. Dr. Malcolm Clemens Young is the dean of Grace Cathedral. He is the author of The Spiritual Journal of Henry David Thoreau and The Invisible Hand in Wilderness: Economics, Ecology, and God, and is a regular contributor on religion to the Huffington Post and San Francisco Examiner.

About The Forum

The Forum is a series of stimulating conversations about faith and ethics in relation to the important issues of our day. We invite inspiring and illustrious people to sit down for a real conversation with the Forum’s host and with you. Our guests range from artists, inventors, and philosophers to pop culturists and elected officials, but the point of The Forum is singular: civil, sophisticated discourse that engages minds and hearts to think in new ways about the world.  More about Grace Forum Online.

Give to Grace

You can help us bring the arts to life at Grace with a gift today to The Forum. Click here to give.   

Become a GraceArts Member

Love engaging dialogue? We offer a special cultural membership program, GraceArts, focused exclusively on the arts and well-being. GraceArts allows a wider community to belong to and support Grace, with discounts and benefits on a robust schedule of events. Learn more and join!