About book The Professor And The Madman: A Tale Of Murder, Insanity And The Making Of The Oxford English Dictionary (2005)
Saya sampai lupa dimana buku ini dibeli, sempat mengintip review dari teman GRI, saya baca reviewnya Pak Tanzil, dan memutuskan membaca buku ini. Saya salah. Tadinya saya mengira buku ini adalah novel, ternyata buku ini adalah semacam "pengantar" pada suatu kisah besar penciptaan kamus yang dianggap termashyur abad ini, yaitu The Oxford English Dictionary (OED).Ditulis oleh Simon Winchester, Ia lahir di London Utara pada 28 September 1944, terlahir sebagai anak tunggal Bernard and Andrée Winchester (née deWael). Ia adalah seorang jurnalis yang juga alumni dari Oxford University dari jurusan Geologi. Selepas dari Oxford, ia bekerja di perusahaan pertambangan Kanada, Falconbridge dan bertugas sebagai geologist lapangan di pertambangan Uganda, Afrika. Selanjutnya ia menjadi junior reporter di The Journal. Kegemarannya traveling dan profesi sebagai jurnalis membawanya pada tempat-tempat menarik di dunia. Dari situs Wikipedia diketahui, bahwa selama kurun waktu 1980 hingga 1990 an ia menulis beberapa buku travel di Asia Pasifik.Buku kecil ini memceritakan secara singkat apa dan bagaimana Kamus yang tersohor di seluruh dunia, The Oxford English Dictionary ada. Sejarah penulisan kamus ini terbilang sangat panjang. Revolusi industri yang ditandai dengan penemuan mesin uap oleh James Watt, tampaknya berpengaruh pada suatu bentuk identitas Inggris sebagai muara ilmu pengetahuan, termasuk diantaranya di bidang linguistik. Pada awal abad 19, hanya Inggris yang di negara Eropa yang belum memiliki kamus bahasa. Negara Eropa lain seperti Jerman, Italia, Perancis, sudah lebih dulu "mengawetkan" bahasa mereka, bahkan sampai mendirikan institusi untuk mengontrol integritas bahasa (Hlm 133).Mungkin hampir mirip dengan yang kita kenal sekarang semacam standar operasi atau standar profesi. Kebutuhan kamus tersebut muncul karena pada masa akhir abad 17, penulis menulis tanpa panduan sama sekali. Penulis sekaliber Shakespeare pun tidak punya argumentasi logis mengapa ia menggunakan kata "In the south suburbs at the Elephant/Is best to lodge" (Hlm 124) pada karya Twelfth Night.Singkatnya, tidak ada panduan yang tercetak mengenai bahasa, tidak ada vade mecum linguistik, tidak ada satu buku pun yang bisa dijadikan referensi oleh Shakespeare atau Martin Frobisher, Francis Drake, Walter Raleigh, Francis Bacon, Edmund Spencer, Christopher Marlowe, Thomas Nash, John Donne, Ben Johnson, Izaak Walton, atau siapapun pada masa itu (Hlm 123).Namun, bukan berarti tidak ada kamus pada zaman itu. Jika ada kata yang digunakan oleh sastrawan di atas, belum ada kamus yang bisa pada tahap menetapkan, mendefinisikan, dan memapankan penggunaan kata tersebut. Ada berbagai buku yang berfungsi kurang lebih sebagai kamus, antara lain Dictionarius pada tahun 1225. Di tahun 1538, kamus Latin-Inggris disusun oleh Tomas Elyot, A Shorte Dictionaire for Yonge Beginners disusun oleh Withal, A Table Alphabeticall ... of hard unusual English Words, disusun oleh Robert Cawdrey. Definisi yang diberikan buku tersebut kurang memuaskan, beberapa kamus menyadurkan satu kata sinonim atau sinonim yang kurang memberikan penjelasan yang memadai (Hlm 131). Samuel Johnson (September 1709 December 1784)) menerbitkan A Dictionary of the English pada Tahun 1746, yang dianggap sudah berhasil memotret bahasa Inggris dengan segala kemegahan, keindahan, dan kerumitannya. Kamus ini cukup terkenal di Inggris hingga ke Amerika. Inilah karya yang menjadi titik tolak bagi sejarah bahasa Inggris untuk menerbitkan suatu standar bahasa nasional Inggris. Para pakar bahasa menyatakan pentingnya bahasa harus diberi martabat dan penghormatan yang setara dengan standar lain. Pada masa itu, di dunia sains para ilmuwan sedang bertanya, seberapa panas air mendidih? Para musisi sedang mendefinisikan bagaimana standar C mayor atau C minor. Selain itu, Pemerintah Inggris membentuk suatu badan yang bertugas membuat garis bujur untuk kepentingan pelayaran dan perdagangan. Badan itu dinamakan The Board of Longitude yang lebih populer dengan nama The Commissioners for the Discovery of the Longitude at Sea (1714-1828). Para tokoh sastra menganggap, jika garis bujur saja pemerintah begitu berkepentingan, pendefinisian warna, panjang, massa itu vital, mengapa bahasa nasional tidak diberi tempat yang sama? Berbagai perdebatan muncul. Ada yang mengkritik, tetapi ada yang berinisiatif bekerja keras mulai menyusun mimpi itu. Johnson membentuk tim untuk mulai bekerja mengumpulkan kata demi kata dari seluruh karya sastra yang bertitik tolak pada terbitan tahun 1586 karena dianggap sastrawan pertama yang terbaik pada saat itu, Sir Philip Sidney meninggal pada 1586. Metodologi yang digunakan oleh Johnson adalah sebagai berikut: Membaca buku-buku, menggarisbawahi serta melingkari kata-kata, membubuhi kata-kata dengan catatan, dan menyuruh pembantunya untuk menyalin di atas slip kertas kalimat lengkap berisi kata yang diseleksi (Hlm 145).Siapa yang disebut The Professor?The Professor adalah James Murray (7 February 1837 – 26 July 1915). Ia adalah seorang Scottish lexicographer and philologist. Pada usia 17 tahun sudah mengajar bahasa Inggris di Hawick Grammar School dan tiga tahun kemudian menjadi kepala sekolah di sana. Dalam usia 32 tahun di 1869, ia menjadi anggota Philological Society, suatu organisasi yang beranggotakan ahli bahasa (filologist). James Murray melanjutkan proyek pembuatan kamus yang sudah digagas oleh Richard Chevenix Trench. Idenya adalah merekrut ratusan ribu amatir yang semuanya bekerja sebagai voluntir, yang bekerja mencatat setiap kata dari sumber manapun untuk diseleksi oleh tim editor yang sudah ditentukan. Trench berfilosofi bahwa setiap kamus besar yang baru harus merupakan produk demokrasi, buku yang memperlihatkan unggulnya kebebasan individu, pengertian bahwa seseorang dapat memakai kata-kata secara merdeka, tanpa ditundukkan aturan leksikal yang kaku (Hlm 159). Berikut ini gambar Murray di Scriptorium di Banbury Road, tahun 1880-an. Perhatikan banyak sekali kertas-kertas yang ada dilemari.[image error]
I JUST WROTE A LONG EFFING REVIEW ABOUT WHY THIS WAS A TERRIBLE BOOK AND FREAKING GOODREADS DELETED IT BECAUSE I CLICKED OUTSIDE THE STUPID REVIEW SQUARE WHILE TRYING TO RING UP A CUSTOMER. I CAN'T REPRODUCE IT SO HERE ARE THE BULLET POINTS:*Winchester has zero grasp of psychology. He may be worse than Freud himself, and that's saying something. Winchester went so far as to suggest that Dr. Minor (the titular madman) could have avoided becoming schizophrenic if he'd just fucked his girlfriend as a teenager.*Not enough primary sources. There are some good quotes about Minor's condition but Winchester does not cite dates or say where the quotes came from. I would have thought a historian would know better?? Also Winchester goes to all the trouble to describe photos but does not include printed copies of the photos. Why???*Insinuates that Doctor Brayn - Minor's psychologist after a much more lenient doctor - only revoked Minor's many privileges because he was jealous of Minor's fame with helping find quotes for the OED. I'm sorry - DOCTOR MINOR HAD JUST CUT OFF HIS OWN PENIS. DOCTOR BRAYN WAS NOT JEALOUS. HE WAS TRYING TO KEEP A SELF-HARMING SCHIZOPHRENIC FROM DOING MORE HARM TO HIMSELF. HE WAS DOING HIS JOB. Winchester goes further, though. He had already demonstrated how Minor was in serious decline by this point (I mean did I mention he cut off his own penis????), and then Doctor Brayn took away all his privileges. Winchester, who apparently has no concept of cause and effect, says that Minor's good health began to decline after the evil Brayn jealously did what he did. NO. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. Declining health -> cutting off penis -> revoking of privileges =/= cutting off penis -> jealousy on the part of the attending physician -> tragic decline of patient. That's some shady-ass logic right there.*One would assume that in a book about the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary, every single word would be chosen with deliberate care. So why does Winchester refer to the murdered man George Merret's family as "the widow and her brood"???? If Winchester had bothered to look up the OED definition of "brood" he would have known it refers to animals exclusively and is insulting to call a human family a brood. Shame upon shame.*Oh and speaking of the widow, I almost forgot this point in the original review, why would Winchester, a supposedly professional historian, bring up a theory that has no backing, no evidence, absolutely nothing to support it other than wild, sensationalised guesswork?? Basically, he wonders if Minor had an affair with Merret's widow. Then he says there's absolutely no evidence this happened or even would have happened. But it could have. Because he (Winchester) says it could have. Therefore it could have. Totally could have. Even though it actually couldn't have. But yeah it TOTALLY could have.Wait, why am I giving this two stars? Oh, I guess the history of the dictionary itself is pretty intriguing. And Minor and Murray are fascinating people. And the definitions of key words for each chapter is a clever device. But overall, Simon Winchester should be ashamed for the shoddy, sensationalistic, misguided mishmash of facts and conjecture he calls a book.
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This is a perfect example of a book that I wish had been written by David McCullough. I gave it three stars based primarily on potential--the story itself was very interesting; the writing was more like 2 stars. I cannot believe this man has been able to make his living as a writer on two continents. His main problem was being redundant, giving the general impression that his target audience was not-too-bright fifth graders (I don't need every little coincidence and connection pointed out 5 times). He also seemed to forget where he was headed from time to time, and in going from storyline to storyline (you know--from the "professor" to the "madman") sometimes felt a little jumpy; like he would get going with one and then kindof say to himself, "oh, I should get back to that other thing. Here's as good a place as any..." At any rate, the actual story was quite interesting, even if the author did manage to make 230 pages seem long. I would tentatively recommend it, but remember it's not the best-written book you're going to come across.
—Danae
If you like etymology, you should read "The Professor and the Madman." Etymology, the study of how words and language change over time, is not to be confused with epididymitis. Which occurs when a man's epididymis, the gummy tissue that connects the vas deferens to the testis, becomes inflamed and creates a relentless dull pain. I dabble in hypochondria from time to time and that fateful afternoon was no exception. Upon waking up with swollen testicles, I spent the better part of half an hour sending goodbye text messages to my family, telling them very briefly about my recently acquired cancer. I sent, "I'M DYING :-(" to my mother,"I'M IN HELL" to my father,and "C U 1N H34V3N" to my dear brother, Nathan.According to the teen clinic, I did not have cancer at all. I had something called epidiymitis which looked as if it was brought on by an unnoticed urinary tract infection. And get this! It would be gone after a couple days of anti-biotics! Imagine my relief! And as an added bonus, two different women pinched and prodded my swollen genitals.
—Casey Moore
I was incredibly—nay, shockingly—surprised at how uninterested I was in this book.Because honestly, murder? Insanity?? DICTIONARIES??? This shit has “Monica!” written all over it.But I think there was maybe too much murder. Or at the very least, too much stuff-after-the-murder. I found myself desperate to know more about the actual puttingtogetherness of the Oxford English Dictionary, and every time boring old Professor James Murray staggered onto the page I wanted to shove him out of the way already so I could get back to the good stuff.Although everything about Dr. William Minor was interesting too, in its own bizarre “seamless syrup of insanity” way. I found the protocol surrounding the mental breakdown of famous Civil War surgeons to be fascinating. (Will, you’re batshit and just shot someone, but we’ll keep you on full pension so you can live the Life You’re Accustomed To.) Plus, it’s nice to have those occasional breathless dear-God-what moments, like the part where the author not only referenced the urethra-lodging Brazilian candiru but also just full-on gave us every detail possible about the removal of Dr. Minor’s, um… “offending object.” The offending object was his penis.Anyway, clearly I found lots about this book interesting, but again… it took me forever to read and I really had to force myself to get through the last half of the text or so. But it may have just been me, friends! So don't let this put you off reading it!
—Monica!
