Includes index.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Machine generated contents note: Introduction: The Background to the Case -- 1. Serendipity, Perhaps -- 2. Lexicography 101 -- 3. Marshallers of Words -- 4. The Longest Way Round -- 5. Uneasy Skanking -- 6. Shark-Infested Waters -- 7. Oed Redux -- 8. The Tunnel and the Vision -- 9. Gxddbov Xxkxzt Pg Ifmk -- 10. At the Top of the Crazy Tree -- 11. Shenanigans Online -- 12. Flavour of the Month -- 13. Becoming the Past.

This is John Simpson's memoir as the former Chief Editor of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED). Simpson takes us from his first encounter with the dictionary in the old-fashioned world of Oxford in 1976 through to his retirement as Chief Editor thirty-seven years later. Simpson introduces us to the dusty basement archives and the traditional OED afternoon tea ceremony, and recounts the personal adventures of a life well lived, from marriage, to the birth of his two daughters. Simpson presents lexicography as an examination of the links between our language and our history. Simpson appreciates the depths of communication that words allow in part because his youngest daughter, Ellie, is autistic and nonverbal. Now in her twenties, Ellie still does not speak, and will most likely never use any of the words her father holds so dear.