Reading Set: An OED stunt journalism project

Is it me or have we seen this one before?

In Reading the OED, under the letter 'S', Ammon Shea issues a friendly exhortation to the reader to read the longest entry in the Oxford English Dictionary which is for the word 'Set'. Within the proposal one can notice some challenge undertone  which makes it too good to pass. So, having already read his experiences with the whole dictionary, liking the word 'set' myself, and wanting to experience some stunt  journalism firsthand I decided to take him up on the challenge.

The first difficulty was to actually be able to read the words. Yes, I have a set handy, but that is the 4 in 1 compact version, the one with the included magnifying glass. For a quick look up I can  easily do without any magnification, but not wanting to to reenact any of Shea's physical discomforts I brought out the glass. Setting it at about two inches from my eyes and five from the page I got comfortable sized text.

Now, since I decided not to rush through the definitions, I decided to break the job into 5 to 10 minute segments. I figured this would give me both the experience and the greater attention span without any of the physical strain. Since my available deskspace was already taken over by other projects I decided to lay down the dictionary flat on the floor and read hunched over it.

As I read I found that my gaze is constantly wandering from the older quotations to the the newer ones and from the quotations in general to the next definition. I attribute this to my greater interest to actual meanings and elegant corralling of signification than Old or Middle-English archaeological sifting. This is just me; I'm sure older eras of the language can be fascinating enough for a lifetime, but I'll pass on that. Also, after two or three of the quotations, generally the more recent ones, I get already the sense spin at hand and don't really feel the need for more.  Yet, there are many more still to go through and one feels under some sort of obligation to at least acknowledge them.

Part of the whole in stunt reporting is embarrassing yourself when explaining your project to others.  One day when my nephew, Matt, came in for a visit he found the oed lying open on the floor and asked what was it. I took the opportunity to briefly introduce him to it telling him that it was the largest dictionary in the English language.

"But, what is it doing here?"

"Oh, I'm in the middle of a project: I'm trying to read all the entries for the word 'set', which I'm told is the longest defined word in the book here. Someone says its quite difficult to go through all of them. It is 25 pages in all."

He, quite prudently, did not pursue the topic, thinking perhaps that his uncle was odder than he previously imagined.

On another occasion my dad came up and asked me

"Are you looking up something?"

"No, I'm trying to read all the definitions of a word"

Next day he asked again

"Are you looking up something?" as if the previous conversation had never happened.

"I told you yesterday. Do you remember?"

"Ah, yes I remember. You told me that you were reading it because it has lots of words."

Anything interesting?

The senses themselves generally do stand well separate, yet sometimes the senses  threatened to go and stay in unfamiliar territory, but they always came back. After all, most of the definitions are senses of put or place, only each differentiating from the other in their own particular twist. Sometimes however I cannot tell one sense from another like sense 1 (first def) and sense 15 (third def)  which both refer to the setting of a heavenly body like the sun: they both look to me the same (oh, I get it now, one is the verb and the other is the verb as a noun […]).  It also appears that s.34 (setting a fire) could be included in s.25, but a distinction is made, which I've not yet  fathomed.  Alternate spellings of other words like suit or sit add some amount to the bulk. In at least one instance these came round in a full circle.  A hen can set itself on eggs (s. 5b) or if presumably it doesn't want to on its own, you can either set the hen to the eggs (s. 1c) or set the eggs to the hen (s. 15d). This pun has been made before, but isn't this an instance fowl play?   Before brushing ourselves clean of feathers let's not forget that also the eggs themselves, as a clutch, can be a set (s. 9e).

Just by reading this word I also got the eerie sense that Shea describes about doubting if one is speaking English at all when talking to others.  There are so many shades of meaning that one feels dizzy.

The sources are varied and mostly obscure to me. The most notable find is the letters of king Richard III taken as a source.

As for typos I only found one on s. 109 where "to cause to move" is printed as "to canse to move" as far as I can tell.  Even with the glass I can't really be sure if it's a misprint or not, though I believe the type was not set right for this word (Ok. I'll stop now).

So in true stunt fashion, I must state what I've learned from the experience. I've learned that I wouldn't read the OED more than an hour daily (30 minutes appears to be my max) even if paid. I've learned that even one word can surprise you with a kaleidoscope of meanings; that citations can be boring  as [fill in the blank]. I've learned why the setter dogs are called that (they are set to game), how old are pancakes (dating at least to the XV century; try to to find where I got that from), what do you set on the Ready, set, go! (your muscles), and that there is more than one way to have your eggs set.

Britannica Great Books coda

Why not make a stunt journalism project?

On first blush the challenge of the 50+ volumes makes the set worthy material for an AJ Jacobs-like stunt journalism project, something like: "The year of reading the Great Books". I myself thought about it, but I found it unviable. Setting a deadline, an a short one at that, and adding to it the relative difficulty of the texts, is a recipe for wasted effort in my opinion. The texts just don't lend themselves to charging through them, nor you would want to if you are to reap what they have to offer. Even if you could somehow finish the project the resulting account, or blog posts, are bound to be mostly uneventful and uninteresting. There is no mirth, embarrassment or family crises, which are the prime material for stunt accounts, in just reading . There is certainly life-changing stuff here, but it takes years for it to work its magic and the changes are mostly internal, not something readily apparent to onlookers. Notwithstanding, there are at least a couple of books that do relate what's like to read great books in general and so here are their brief mention if you want to look into them (I've not read them myself so I cannot speak of their merits or goals).  These are Great Books by Denby and The Year of Reading Dangerously by Miller

Adler next time.

Reading the OED book review

Personal accounts can offer a window into other people's passions. Part of the joy of reading nonfiction is that one gets to know about these very real experiences even if one doesn't share them. In Reading the OED Ammon Shea gives us an account of him reading every single word from the Oxford English Dictionary.

Alphabetically, each letter contains his observations on reading and owning dictionaries in general and the OED in particular, and a list of words starting with the letter in turn that for a number of reasons he finds notable, funny, unexplainable, etc.  Of both groups I stay with the anecdotal over the lists for the human element. My favorite parts were him reading in the basement of a college library and talking of mice and nonexistent rats, his views on the 'library people' and the prodigious amounts coffee he drinks which should deserve part of the credit for pulling the project through. The lists of words for their part never really caught on with me, but were not boring either. On the practical side I'm quite sure that I'll not be using any of them soon (except zugzwang which already is part of my vocabulary).

It is perhaps unavoidable to compare this one with AJ Jacobs' The Know it All in which the project was to read the whole Encyclopedia Britannica and relate what was like. Reading the OED doesn't capture Jacobs' charm and spontaneity, but there is something more endearing in Shea's exploit. Jacobs loves knowledge; Shea loves words and the dictionary, the medium itself. 

Comparing both accounts, Shea has the tougher bone. Part of the challenge of the OED's own physical being. It is large and heavy; the font small and the words dense; the citations abundant and in older English in large proportion.  Along the way Shea describes the various pains and aches he develops from reading too much. I feel amazed and slightly horrified at what he puts himself through; nonetheless, he loves every second of it.

I believe that Jacobs' project ultimately fails though because of its unsystematicity. He goes through the material alright but without an overarching plan for organization, use and retention.  Of course, had he done so, he'd probably still be at it and we wouldn't have his book. Shea on the other hand just wants to be delighted and share and by both counts he succeeds  (for my part I'm casting my lot with the Great Books of which we'll talk next time).

Would I recommend you go buy it? Can't really. For all its virtues it still is a niche account. His enthusiasm for dictionaries and words comes across, but didn't win me entirely over. I still find the whole project extraordinary.  Reading the OED has its place, but that would be after the The Know it All, or instead of, if you love words over just facts.

(I've decided to take up on one challenge Shea puts forth in this book, and do some stunt reporting of my own. We'll talk about that in a couple months' time)

Bible Quartet

Even if you're not a religious person you should really read the Bible. It is arguably the most important book out there and is very likely the best book ever, even if you don't believe a word of it. It has everything:  history and myth,  uptightness  and eroticism, rules to live by and habits best to avoid, genocidal super villains and divinely infused superheroes, acts of mercy and despicable crimes,  tragedy and unintended comedy, miraculous births and the walking dead, psychology, espionage, deus ex machinae, poetry, a possible UFO abduction, and blood and guts galore. What other book can give you so much?

We, modern readers, have a bit of a problem reading it nonetheless, because we cannot directly relate with the names and places and many of the characters that are in there; Nebuchadnezzar could easily be the name of an evil character in a science fiction novel. Also, the prose is not like what we used to nowadays. So, there's  somewhat of a hurdle to be overcome and thus we need a bit of help and patience to get going.

What I will call loosely the Bible Quartet could be your ticket and I review it here.

The Good Book

The Good Book by David Plotz is the account of Mr. Plotz's first encounter with the Bible. He is of Jewish background and had been acquainted with the Bible before but only in passing. He tells us all the unexpected things one can find when one really commits himself to read the Bible from cover to cover for the first time and without no extra layer of material or interpretation. The result is a very enjoyable book which puts forth many of the apparent inconsistencies and funniness that's in there. For those who have not read the actual holy texts, the good book can work has to crash course on the contents of the Bible. Around the middle he takes a break and goes archaeological digging at Israel and he shares us that as well. He stops his reading at the end of the Old Testament, but that's not the end of his book. He finishes by giving us reasons why we should read the Bible and with what we really want to know: what impact it had on him. He delivers by describing the changes in him  both intellectually and spiritually. As an added bonus, we have an appendix with the best (and worst) parts of the Bible in list form. Thoroughly recommended but seriously consider a second reading of the Bible, this time with  with interpretation, for you might be missing out by staying just with the anecdotal.

Five stars

The Year of Living Biblically by AJ Jacobs.

Mr. Jacobs is also secular Jew. He began to suspect that he might be missing on something by not being as religious as he could be, so he set up a challenge for himself.   What he attempted and achieved in this book is to live by the Bible for a year. The challenge was to be the "ultimate fundamentalist" following all the rules he could find simultaneously: no picking and choosing allowed. Early on, he takes a very wise decision in consulting experts on difficult or ambiguous rules. This gives us insight about how some of the difficult portions have been resolved for practical life. Also to his credit, Mr. Jacobs sticks to his commitment no matter how difficult or awkward it is for him at times. As with his other books, his wife gives him plenty of support, challenge and humor. Like Plotz, Mr. Jacobs gives us his insights at the end of the book, but these are less satisfying as he is more sparse. This may be because throughout the book he gives his feelings and experiences in real time, which leaves not much for later reflection. This is the book that finally pushed me to read Bible in its entirety. Also highly recommended.

Four stars

The Year of Living Like Jesus by Edward G Dobson

Of the four this is the oddest in more than one aspect. In no way this is a bad thing. First off, Dobson is the only fully fledged Christian of the group, an evangelical pastor nonetheless. He was inspired by Jacobs's book and attempted to do likewise, but with a Jesus flavor. Consider for a moment what it would take to be like Jesus for a one year. Ready? I expected Dobson to take a smooth ready set road, but he surprises by taking another viewpoint and going cross-country. He starts one direction taking the outward aspects first giving us a day by day account of his occurrences very much like Jacobs, and working from there. Midway through though, his circumstances change and he adapts the project. On the second half, he draws more from his previous experiences and preaching  giving us real life examples and how they relate to Jesus's teachings while providing his own take on trying to follow Him. As with the others, he goes beyond his comfort zone and commendably tries out new aspects of living his faith. Like the others too, he's very honest about giving us his failures. His stories and experiences makes this book worth more than one reading.

Three stars

The Unlikely Disciple by Kevin Roose

In Roose's case, he was a liberal atheist to begin with. He was associated with Mr. Jacobs and decided to take on a challenge to his own. He attempted to take a semester on Liberty University, "America's holiest University", passing himself as one of the flock. From start to finish, this poses a quandary as he longs to disclose himself to the fine people he meets, studies and lives with, but cannot do so without ruining his project. To allay suspicion he joins in as many activities as possible and live the fullest Liberty experience as he can. The result for us, is that we get to know the ordinary life of a Liberty student without having to enroll. Towards the end of the semester circumstances turn serious as he unintendedly becomes a focus of attention in one, if not the most, important event of Liberty's history. This book is more internally reflexive than the other three as the author wrests with conflicting emotions. As I see it, this is because in the other three cases, the projects are mostly in the open. In this one, he has no one on site to fully share, except us. If you have more than a passing interest in Liberty, The Unlikely Disciple is the book for you.

Three stars

Other recommended books:

• Asimov's guide to the Bible
• The Antiquities of the Jews by Josephus (available also on Librivox)