The Oxford English Dictionary and Me

An idiot’s pedantic nonsense

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I have few regrets in life, but one lingers: I wish I had discovered the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) sooner. I wish I had encountered it before meeting my wife, whom I met in my late twenties. Had I done so, my life might have been even more joyful.

I began using the OED to deepen my understanding of James Joyce’s works. Since I discovered Joyce in my fifties, my encounter with the OED was inevitably delayed. It couldn’t be helped.

The OED, published by Oxford University Press, is widely recognized as the world’s most authoritative and comprehensive English dictionary. Comprising 20 volumes, its total weight — over 60 kilograms — is overwhelming.

I once watched a Japanese TV drama titled Weaving a Boat, which portrayed the work of editors compiling a Japanese dictionary — just one volume, weighing less than a kilogram, quite normal for a dictionary. The title comes from the idea that a dictionary is like a boat navigating the vast ocean of words.

The characters encounter various difficulties in the compilation process, but the task that resonated most with me was ensuring that no headwords were omitted and that typos were avoided. At that moment, the OED came to mind. Publishing such an enormous dictionary without a single mistake must be an indescribably difficult task. I would like to express my respect to the editors who created it.

I was working as a mechanical car designer at an automobile company, living a life completely detached from literature and the OED.

One day, I happened to see a newspaper advertisement for a university extension course. It was there that I first encountered Joyce’s works, and I began dabbling in research on them. When I received feedback from the course lecturer — a university professor — on the draft of my unfinished paper, he pointed out: “If you’re quoting from a dictionary, it must be the OED.”

Until then, I had relied on one of the largest English–Japanese dictionaries commonly used in Japan. I began frequenting the library, consulting the OED, and revised my paper accordingly. Thanks to those efforts, I managed to complete a manuscript and submitted it to the James Joyce Society of Japan. Fortunately, it was published as a “Research Note” in its journal.

I decided to reward myself with a used copy of the OED, so I called a bookstore in Tokyo known for its secondhand selection to confirm they had it, adding that I’d buy it if I liked it. On the agreed day, I visited the shop and found the OED piled high on a table.

The owner said he had checked every single page for missing ones. With nearly 20,000 pages, I found that hard to believe. The exterior showed some wear, but nothing concerning — so I decided to buy it. Fortunately, I haven’t found any missing pages so far, so perhaps the shopkeeper’s claim was true after all.

Since I couldn’t carry it home myself, I asked them to send it by courier. A few days later, I came home from work to find the OED had arrived. I placed it on my bookshelf, pleased by its imposing presence.

When my daughter’s father-in-law, a doctor of engineering, visited our home, he spotted the OED and said, “That’s impressive.” I replied modestly, “It’s just for show.” It seemed to lend me a touch of borrowed intelligence— an overwhelming intellectual presence.

When I consult the OED, I hold an English–Japanese electronic dictionary in one hand. Whenever I encounter unfamiliar words in the OED, I turn to it for support. It feels inefficient, even a little embarrassing, but it’s a necessary step for me when reading Joyce deeply and writing papers.

One of the OED’s great strengths, I think, is its wealth of historical examples — not just definitions. Whenever I look up a word that appears in Joyce’s sentences, I check whether that sentence appears among the OED’s examples.

To find them among the many examples, I scan for the year 1922. Since the examples are listed chronologically, and the publication year appears at the head of each entry, that year serves as my guide. Ulysses was published in 1922. Each time I find one of Joyce’s sentences, I feel a quiet joy.

Recently, I discovered another way to enjoy the OED: reading it as a book, not just a dictionary. The inspiration came from a book called Reading the OED by Ammon Shea, who read the dictionary cover to cover and wrote about the experience in the book.

Reading a dictionary from cover to cover may seem pointless, yet the idea fascinates me. I’d like to begin by reading the “Introduction,” then explore how words like love and peace have been defined and used. It may serve no practical purpose, but I believe it could nourish my soul.

The OED I own is the second edition, revised in 1989. Since then, no further updates have been made to the print version. Instead, a CD-ROM edition was released, allowing searches not only by index but also by keyword — making it easier to locate entries. New vocabulary and meanings are added periodically, and the latest updates can be accessed via the CD-ROM or the online version.

Though undeniably convenient, the digital edition lacks the solemnity that comes with the physical presence and weight of the printed volumes. Perhaps I’m out of step with the times, still drawn to the OED’s old-fashioned charm.

I no longer use the OED as frequently as I once did. When reading Joyce’s works and encountering unfamiliar words, I find I’ve lost the energy to look it up and pursue it deeply. I’ve come to feel it’s fine to move on, leaving questions unresolved, and simply enjoy what I can understand.

These days, I even need a magnifying glass to read the OED. Perhaps this, too, is part of the quiet decline that comes with age.

From now on, I want to keep the OED close — not to look up meanings, its original purpose — but simply to read and enjoy.

Yet keeping it near feels like having a boat always moored by my side, ready to set sail whenever I wish.