Episode Details
Back to Episodes
The Volunteer Reading Army: How 19th‑Century Philologists Crowdsourced the First Oxford English Dictionary
Episode 47
Published 5 days, 11 hours ago
Description
Discover how Frederick Furnivall organized thousands of book‑hunters to gather quotations for the first OED, turning readers into archivists and laying the groundwork for modern crowdsourcing. This episode traces the logistics, scale, and legacy of this pre‑internet dictionary project and its lasting impact on lexicography.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices