Book of a lifetime: Oxford English Dictionary

From The Independent archive: David Crystal on the joy of words

How else could one possibly keep up with the rate of lexical change, worldwide, and especially on the internet? (Getty/iStock)

I wonder if I could cheat and go for a genre rather than an individual book? Maybe the literary editor will be too busy to notice. It has to be a dictionary: any dictionary. From as early as I can remember, I’ve been fascinated by dictionaries. All those senses. All those words. And in alpha order too. Oh, the holy joy of it! [Ed: I’ve noticed.]

Well, if it has to be one book, it’s got to be the OED. The Oxford English Dictionary. In its unabridged form. None of your Concises or Shorters or Littles. The whole works. Also online. Over half a million word stories, available at the click of a mouse. And the entire history of any word – to the extent that research has brought it to light. The extraordinary number of idioms. The unexpected spellings. The surprising etymologies. Grammar and glamour both have the same origin. How can that be?