FIFTY YEARS SPENT OVER ONE BOOK.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 153, 24 July 1909, Page 4

FIFTY YEARS SPENT OVER ONE BOOK.

J WHAT DICTIONARY•OJAfIGNGi MEANS Twenty-one years ago Sir James Murray, better known perhaps as Mr. Murray, commenced to compile a new English dictionary. At present the letters M and P arc in course of completion, and it is hoped that Z will he finished in 1012, or close upon a quarter of a century after the commencement of the work. J This, however, is by no means a record t length of time for the compilation of an important dictionary. There is one published in Amsterdam and known as the great "Woorden-boek der Nederlandsche Taal." which was commenced as far .back as 1852. The first volume was published thirty years later, and at the present time tho work is about half finished. The first volume of another Continental dictionary, containing A, was published in 186*3, and will, it is I estimated, not be finished Until fifteen | years hence. A good idea of what tho compilation of these important dictionaries really , means is conveyed by some interesting figures published by the Globe concern* ! ing the dictionary on which Sir James ; Murray is engaged. It is estimated that there are 34.351,4)80 words in the dictionary to the letter# mentioned, and 120,133,704 letters. There arc 9431 pages in this section, and if man were to read such "portions as are already pub- : lished at the rate of one page a day. his task would take him nearly twentysix years. If the lin'es of-typo were arranged end ! to end. the distance covered would be j about ltd miles, or five and a-half times : the journey between Dover and Calais, and nearly from Newhaven to Dieppe or from Dover to Ostond and hack again in iboth cases. The printed matter in the volumes referred to, if arranged in 1 columns, would extend nearly twenty- i four tim'cs as high, as the Kill'el Tower. \ and over 118 times as KiglTas the Monu 1 ment.