Books about Lexicography from Amazon.com

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Price: $16.22 [Notify me when price goes down.]

An obsessive word lover’s account of reading the Oxford English Dictionary cover to cover.

“I’m reading the OED so you don’t have to. If you are interested in vocabulary that is both spectacularly useful and beautifully useless, read on...”

So reports Ammon Shea, the tireless, word-obsessed, and more than slightly masochistic author of Reading the OED. The word lover’s Mount Everest, the OED has enthralled logophiles since its initial publication 80 years ago. Weighing in at 137 pounds, it is the dictionary to end all dictionaries.

In 26 chapters filled with sharp wit, sheer delight, and a documentarian’s keen eye, Shea shares his year inside the OED, delivering a hair-pulling, eye-crossing account of reading every word, and revealing the most obscure, hilarious, and wonderful gems he discovers along the way..
Price: $7.89 [Notify me when price goes down.]

The Professor and the Madman, masterfully researched and eloquently written, is an extraordinary tale of madness, genius, and the incredible obsessions of two remarkable men that led to the making of the Oxford English Dictionary -- and literary history. The compilation of the OED began in 1857, it was one of the most ambitious projects ever undertaken. As definitions were collected, the overseeing committee, led by Professor James Murray, discovered that one man, Dr. W. C. Minor, had submitted more than ten thousand. When the committee insisted on honoring him, a shocking truth came to light: Dr. Minor, an American Civil War veteran, was also an inmate at an asylum for the criminally insane.

This P.S. edition features an extra 16 pages of insights into the book, including author interviews, recommended reading, and more.

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Price: $4.99 [Notify me when price goes down.]

"Lexicography is not just an exercise in linguistic accounting," writes preeminent English language scholar David Crystal in this exceptionally lively and erudite little book. "It is a voyage of lexical exploration and discovery."
In Words, Words, Words, Crystal takes readers on a fascinating linguistic adventure, exploring the English language in all its oddity, complexity, and ever-changing beauty. Traveling from word origins and word evolution to wordgangs, wordrisks, wordplay, wordgames and beyond, Crystal shares his immense knowledge of, and equally immense delight in, language. He celebrates new words, old words, words that "snarl" and words that "purr," elegant words and taboo words, plain English words and convoluted gobbledegook, eponyms and antonyms, spoonerisms and malapropisms, and a host of other written and spoken forms and variations.
Words, Words, Words offers invaluable insight on such subjects as how to estimate the size of your vocabulary the functions of jargon when cliches are necessary the value of slang words ("the chief use of slang/is to show you're one of the gang") how to create your own "semantic field" dialect humor how to become a word detective how to keep a record of your child's words and much more!
With illuminating sidebars featuring everything from common word origins and sample definitions from the dictionaries of Samuel Johnson and Ambrose Bierce to a passage from Finnegan's Wake and the winning entries of The Guardian Text Message Poetry Competition, Words, Words, Words will both satisfy and spark the curiosity of anyone who has ever been intrigued, befuddled, or awed by words and myriad ways we use them..
Price: $8.67 [Notify me when price goes down.]

"A national language is a national tie, and what country wants it more than America?"
-- Noah Webster

What makes American English American? In 1800, irascible patriot Noah Webster set out to answer this question by tirelessly recording the vocabulary of a novel breed -- the American citizen. Though he was a political conservative, his American Dictionary of the English Language was born out of his deeply held and profoundly democratic conviction that language was by and for the people. A word's popularity, no matter how lowly its origins, was its criterion for inclusion. Webster's original American dictionary, the granddaddy of them all, helped define the American character.

In a light-footed introductory essay, Harvard historian and New Yorker contributor Jill Lepore brilliantly revives the curmudgeonly Webster: his rigor, his passion for words, and his paradoxical ideas about language and politics. Arthur Schulman, longtime crossword puzzle creator for The New York Times, has culled fifteen hundred of Webster's entries from the original book, revealing Webster's interpretive powers as well as his pervasive moralism. Incisively annotated and delightfully illustrated with quotes from contemporary American sources, these excerpts paint a fascinating picture of a budding Republic.

For everyone who's ever gone to "look it up in Webster's" Websterisms offers a crisp new view both of the man justifiably called the Founding Father of American English and of his magnum opus. It took Webster twenty-eight years to compile and publish his monumental work, during which time he was much mocked: what could American English be but a perversion of the King's English? But his dictionary stuck, and its influence grew and grew. We still use most of the words Webster defined, like spank and caucus. Others, like musquash, haven't fared as well. Websterisms tells the tale of a language that once was and that lives on..
Price: $7.50 [Notify me when price goes down.]

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Price: $4.78 [Notify me when price goes down.]

The extraordinary true story of Peter Mark Roget and his legendary Thesaurus.

Peter Mark Roget-polymath, eccentric, synonym aficionado-was a complicated man. He was an eminent scholar who absorbed himself in his work, yet he also possessed an allure that endeared him to his mentors and colleagues-not to mention a host of female admirers. But, most notably, Roget made lists.

From the age of eight, he kept these lists with the intention of ordering the chaotic world around him. After his father's death, his mother became, at once, overbearing and despondent. Soon, his sister would also descend into mental illness. Despite these tragedies, Roget lived a colorful life full of unexpected twists and discoveries-including narrowly avoiding jail in Napoleon's France, assisting famed physician Thomas Beddoes by personally testing the effects of laughing gas, and inventing the slide rule.

Evocative and entertaining, The Man Who Made Lists lets readers join Roget on his worldly adventures and emotional journeys. This rich narrative explores the power of words and the everlasting legacy of a rediscovered genius..
Price: $3.81 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Of Greek and Hebrew, Hebrew strikes the most fear in the heart of the Bible student The alphabet does not look anything like English The vocabulary offers almost no points of contact with English. The verb system is utterly alien. And the lexicons, grammars and textbooks are wrapped up in a metalanguage--spiked with Latin--that is daunting in itself. For those who feel that studying the English Old Testament is a challenge, the thought of reading it in Hebrew is extreme. Hebrew students need all the help they can get. If you are beginning your study of Hebrew and the Hebrew Bible, this pocket dictionary by Todd J. Murphy is for you. From ablative to zaqeph qaton, it defines the tangled terms that infest Hebrew textbooks, grammars and lexicons. Here is a book that will deliver you from the perils of the Piel and the thicket of metathesis. It is an indispensable glossary that will cut through that technical language--neither Hebrew nor English--that hovers like ground fog over the study and discussion of biblical Hebrew. Now you can devote more time to enjoying biblical Hebrew in all its richness..
Price: $8.50 [Notify me when price goes down.]

In a recent review of the Oxford English Dictionary on CD-ROM, Library Journal called the accompanying booklet, a brief guide to the OED, a "work of art." Now, this work of art has been expanded and enhanced to a full-length book, A Guide to the Oxford English Dictionary. Here Donna Lee Berg has provided a fascinating source of general information about the OED as well as a detailed account of the conventions and organization of the dictionary text, specially designed to enhance the reader's enjoyment and understanding of this incomparable work. This lively volume is the first to provide an in-depth account of the structure of the OED: it gives an analysis of the components of a typical entry, and covers special entries, such as acronyms, abbreviations, and proper names. In addition, a fascinating A-Z companion section covers grammatical terms, languages, the history of the Dictionary, the individuals who have shaped it, and a host of other topics. Also included are a bibliography, a chronology of the OED, and a listing of key facts and figures about the Dictionary. The Guide will be an invaluable handbook for everyone who relies on the OED, a roadmap to the greatest dictionary ever compiled..
Price: $132.89 [Notify me when price goes down.]

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Price: $4.00 [Notify me when price goes down.]