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Murray Scriptorium

@MurrayScript

A project to digitize and edit the papers of Sir James A. H. Murray, first chief editor of the Oxford English Dictionary. Pilot phase funded by BA/Leverhulme.

murrayscriptorium.org
Joined July 2015
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Murray Scriptorium@MurrayScript26 Jul 2022
#OTD in 1915 James Murray died aged 78. He was working on the OED until the last. Our Gallery has a photo of him and his staff in the Scriptorium taken just 16 days before his death: murrayscriptorium.org/resour…
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If you want to read more about some of the women who worked on the OED, we have a commentary on that… murrayscriptorium.org/commen… …as well as a few photos of them in our gallery: murrayscriptorium.org/resour…
Debbie Cameron (@wordspinster) profile pictureDebbie Cameron@wordspinster24 Jul 2023
New on Language: a feminist guide: a post about the history of women's words, inspired by @Stylisticienne's book Mother Tongue and Pip Williams's novel The Dictionary of Lost Words debuk.wordpress.com/2023/07/…
Lost words and hidden histories

Lost words and hidden histories

Among the first feminist books I ever read was Sheila Rowbotham’s Hidden from History. It was one of many attempts by feminists in the 1970s to write women back into a historical record which was p…

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John Stephen Farmer, a Victorian spiritualist, also wrote a seven-volume dictionary of slang. In 1891, he told Murray he was suing his dictionary’s printers for refusing to typeset certain obscene words that occurred under the letters C and F. (He lost.) murrayscriptorium.org/id/Let…
A portrait of Farmer from Nineteenth Century Miracles; or, Spirits and Their Work in Every Country of the Earth by Emma Hardinge Britten (1884). Credit: Archive.org.

ALT A portrait of Farmer from Nineteenth Century Miracles; or, Spirits and Their Work in Every Country of the Earth by Emma Hardinge Britten (1884). Credit: Archive.org.

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Happy birthday to us! MurrayScriptorium.org launched a year ago today. We don’t know whether there’s a technical word for a 1st anniversary, but here’s Murray writing exasperatedly to someone who wanted to know what a 700th anniversary should be called: murrayscriptorium.org/id/Let…
Murray and four assistants at work in the Scriptorium. Murray’s party hat may have been Photoshopped in.

ALT Murray and four assistants at work in the Scriptorium. Murray’s party hat may have been Photoshopped in.

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The 4th of July seems as good a day as any to note that in 1883 the poet James Russell Lowell sent Murray a reference to one of the earliest known uses of ‘American’ in English—from a poem by George Herbert published in 1633: murrayscriptorium.org/id/Let…
The title page of The Temple, Sacred Poems, and Private Ejaculations by George Herbert (second edition, also published in 1633). Source: Wikimedia Commons.

ALT The title page of The Temple, Sacred Poems, and Private Ejaculations by George Herbert (second edition, also published in 1633). Source: Wikimedia Commons.

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#OTD in 1840, Elizabeth Wordsworth, first Principal of @lmhoxford, was born. In 1907 she wrote that the @OED was ‘quite a fatal book to open, for one never looks up one word in it without straightway being attracted by several others!’ murrayscriptorium.org/id/Let…
Photograph of Elizabeth Wordsworth in an academic gown and Tudor bonnet, 1928. © National Portrait Gallery, London.

ALT Photograph of Elizabeth Wordsworth in an academic gown and Tudor bonnet, 1928. © National Portrait Gallery, London.

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In June 1908, the OED’s Reserve–Ribaldously fascicle was published… after two of the editors, Murray and Craigie, had got into a scrap about how to spell the word RHYME (sorry, RIME). murrayscriptorium.org/id/Let…
The first page of the preface to the Ree–Ribaldously section, of which Reserve–Ribaldously formed a part.

ALT The first page of the preface to the Ree–Ribaldously section, of which Reserve–Ribaldously formed a part.

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#OTD in 1928 the completion of the OED was celebrated with a banquet for 200 male guests in Goldsmiths’ Hall. A few women were invited to watch from a gallery—but not Ada Murray, widow of the chief editor. She wrote a poignant letter asking to attend. murrayscriptorium.org/id/Let…
An illustration of Goldsmiths’ Hall, 19th century, artist unknown. Credit: Wikimedia Commons.

ALT An illustration of Goldsmiths’ Hall, 19th century, artist unknown. Credit: Wikimedia Commons.

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Poet and novelist Thomas Hardy was born #OTD in Dorset in 1840. He would exchange several letters with James Murray about local words used in South West England, including one on EWELEASE, HOGLEASE, and COWLEASE: murrayscriptorium.org/id/Let…
Shepherd with His Flock*, painted by Jean-Victor Bertin c. 1820. Credit: National Gallery of Art. (*Probably not in Dorset.)

ALT Shepherd with His Flock*, painted by Jean-Victor Bertin c. 1820. Credit: National Gallery of Art. (*Probably not in Dorset.)

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Henry Bradley, co-editor of the OED, died 100 years ago today. Despite his keen intellect and meticulous scholarship, he was a deeply humble man. Here he is batting aside compliments about the Middle-English Dictionary he found time to revise on the side: murrayscriptorium.org/id/Let…
Photograph of a bespectacled Henry Bradley taken in 1917. © National Portrait Gallery, London

ALT Photograph of a bespectacled Henry Bradley taken in 1917. © National Portrait Gallery, London

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In May 1893 the OED’s Consignificant–Crouching fascicle was published. It included Murray’s observation that young people had begun to pronounce the noun CONTENT differently from their elders. Kids today, eh? murrayscriptorium.org/id/Let…
An advert for Ridge’s Food c. 1900, featuring four children in a wagon being chased by dogs while a woman holding a baby looks on. The actual content of Ridge’s Food is vague, but it seems to have been a kind of ground grain used to make porridge. Credit: Wikimedia Commons.

ALT An advert for Ridge’s Food c. 1900, featuring four children in a wagon being chased by dogs while a woman holding a baby looks on. The actual content of Ridge’s Food is vague, but it seems to have been a kind of ground grain used to make porridge. Credit: Wikimedia Commons.

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Following on from the last tweet, here’s more information on the OED’s use of quotations from literary sources: murrayscriptorium.org/commen…
An OED quotation slip for the word FLOOD on display in the Museum of Oxford University Press. Credit: Wikimedia Commons.

ALT An OED quotation slip for the word FLOOD on display in the Museum of Oxford University Press. Credit: Wikimedia Commons.

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OED1 was based on evidence drawn from written sources of all kinds, but some contributors preferred quotations from an elite (male) literary canon. #OTD in 1883, HH Gibbs aired his views on taking quotes from writers of popular novels (many of them women): murrayscriptorium.org/id/Let…
Photograph of a bearded and besuited Henry Hucks Gibbs. Credit: © National Portrait Gallery, London.

ALT Photograph of a bearded and besuited Henry Hucks Gibbs. Credit: © National Portrait Gallery, London.

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Shakespeare died #OTD 407 years ago. In 1880, Constance Pott, a proponent of the theory that Francis Bacon was the real author of Shakespeare’s plays, wrote to Murray about similarities she’d found between the two writers’ vocabularies… murrayscriptorium.org/id/Let… #ShakespeareDay
Title page of Francis Bacon and His Secret Society by Constance Pott (1891), in which she laid out her Shakespeare authorship theory.

ALT Title page of Francis Bacon and His Secret Society by Constance Pott (1891), in which she laid out her Shakespeare authorship theory.

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Today is a very special anniversary. #OTD in 1877, Henry Sweet sent a letter to Oxford University Press proposing that they publish what would become the Oxford English Dictionary. You can read the proposal here: murrayscriptorium.org/id/Let…
Image from Murray Scriptorium (@MurrayScript)
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Murray spent many hours writing to authors to find out why they’d used a particular word. In 1901 he joked that the standard response he got was: ‘I have really forgotten… what terrible people you dictionary fellows are, hunting us up about every word’. murrayscriptorium.org/id/Let…
A photograph of a magnifying glass lying on top of a page in an open dictionary (not the OED). The entry under the glass is for ‘language’.

ALT A photograph of a magnifying glass lying on top of a page in an open dictionary (not the OED). The entry under the glass is for ‘language’.

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#OTD in 1837 the poet Algernon Charles Swinburne was born. In 1897, Murray wrote to ask him if he’d ever used the word HARVESTRY, as another dictionary had claimed. Swinburne replied, ‘I suppose I must have done so, if lexicographers say so…’ murrayscriptorium.org/id/Let…
A photograph of Swinburne in a jaunty Homburg hat, taken by John McLanachan in 1894. Credit: Wikimedia Commons.

ALT A photograph of Swinburne in a jaunty Homburg hat, taken by John McLanachan in 1894. Credit: Wikimedia Commons.

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‘Oh be joyful!’ The medievalist Lucy Toulmin Smith—later the 1st Librarian of @HMCOxford—published a ground-breaking edition of the York Mystery Plays in 1885. Here, she writes to Murray about her joy at getting access to the manuscript murrayscriptorium.org/id/Let… #WomensHistoryMonth
A photograph of a bespectacled and high-collared Lucy Toulmin Smith. Credit: Harris Manchester College, University of Oxford.

ALT A photograph of a bespectacled and high-collared Lucy Toulmin Smith. Credit: Harris Manchester College, University of Oxford.

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Edith Thompson (1848–1929) was the author of History of England, a popular Victorian schoolbook. She was also one of the OED’s most dedicated contributors. In 1882 she empathized with Murray about the need ‘to keep a book short’: murrayscriptorium.org/id/Let… #WomensHistoryMonth
Title page of an 1889 edition of History of England by Edith Thompson. Credit: Archive.org.

ALT Title page of an 1889 edition of History of England by Edith Thompson. Credit: Archive.org.

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In March 1897 the OED’s Flexuosity–Foister fascicle was published. It included one of the longest words in English: FLOCCINAUCINIHILIPILIFICATION. Read about editor Henry Bradley’s frustration at fitting it into the dictionary: murrayscriptorium.org/id/Let…
Photograph of part of the OED’s entry for floccinaucinihilipilification.

ALT Photograph of part of the OED’s entry for floccinaucinihilipilification.

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