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Help the OED Find a Lost Book

Posted by Unknown on from the doesn't-everyone-have-that-book dept.

New submitter imlepid writes "The Oxford English Dictionary is currently undergoing a complete overhaul which includes a reexamination of the 300,000+ entries and citations for those entries. Understandably for a work which is over 150 years old, some of the sources have become hard to find. One such example is a book titled 'Meanderings of Memory' by Nightlark, which is cited 49 times in the OED, including for some rare words. The OED's editorial team has appealed to the public, 'Have you seen a copy of this book?'"

9 of 91 comments (clear)

  1. I've met a work witch by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    Their work ethic is wicked.

  2. Did they check the filing cabinet? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    "But Mr Dent, Meanderings of Memory has been available in the local library for the last nine months."

    "Oh yes, well as soon as I heard I went straight round to see it, yesterday afternoon. You hadn't exactly gone out of your way to call attention to them, had you? I mean, like actually telling anybody or anything."

    "But the book was on display ..."

    "On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find it."

    "That's the display department."

    "With a flashlight."

    "Ah, well the lights had probably gone."

    "So had the stairs."

    "But look, you found the book didn't you?"

    "Yes," said Arthur, "yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying 'Beware of the Leopard'."

  3. Irony? by ubrgeek · · Score: 5, Funny

    They can't remember where they left the 'Meanderings of Memory' book?

    --
    Bark less. Wag more.
  4. Does it even really exist? by JDG1980 · · Score: 4, Funny

    What if "Meanderings of Memory" never existed in the first place, but was made up by sloppy 19th-century OED editors when they couldn't find a real source? It's not as if this practice is unknown...

    1. Re:Does it even really exist? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      check the comments under the OED blog - there's a link to a catalog on google books which lists it

    2. Re:Does it even really exist? by tgd · · Score: 4, Interesting

      What if "Meanderings of Memory" never existed in the first place, but was made up by sloppy 19th-century OED editors when they couldn't find a real source? It's not as if this practice is unknown...

      Maybe its like the fake roads that cartographers put into maps... anyone else who references it clearly copied the OED!

    3. Re:Does it even really exist? by Spiridios · · Score: 4, Informative

      check the comments under the OED blog - there's a link to a catalog on google books which lists it

      Would that I could mod you up. Here's the catalog. It's entirely possible that it's also made up, but seems less likely.

  5. I'll Check by HtR · · Score: 4, Funny

    Let me check. It might be sitting on my desk.

    Umm - this might take a couple of hours ...

    --
    Have you tried turning it off and on again?
  6. 'Meanderings of Memory' by Nightlark by Jeremiah+Cornelius · · Score: 5, Funny

    A famous literary hoax, of Borgesian dimensions.

    One might adduce as much, from the enigmatic title of the purported work, and the pseudonymous attribution of authorship.

    In fact, this was the product of several Oxford dons, in the generation before Tolkien - who expanded on the academic chicanery of spurious reference work by creating an entire cosmos, populated with libraries of such.

    Now, let us turn to the Voynich manuscript, and the Dictionary of the Khazars...

    --
    "Flyin' in just a sweet place,
    Never been known to fail..."