Well, oddly enough, this book also coincides with my last posting about my roommate who has lost touch with reality. Even some of the phrasing in the book, like "the sad and relentless progress of his downward spiral" (page 123) reminds me of how I described George's struggle, a downward spiral. The descriptions of the doctor are very similar to what I witnessed when my roommate quickly lost his mind. For example, "Small boys, he believed, were put up in the rafters above his bed...[he] is convinced that intruders manage to get in...the expression of his face in the morning is often haggard and wild, as though he did not obtain much rest" (pages 123-124). The idea that intruders are trying to get in is very similar to the case with my roommate, who still believes that people are coming after him. Also, the haggard, wild appearance matches the look that I saw on my roommate's face the day before his family came to take him away. This only further cements my notion that something is seriously wrong with my roommate. My apologies for coming back to this topic again, but I suppose it is my blog so I can write about whatever I'd like to!
I was surprised to find that Eliza Merrett, the widow of the man Dr. Minor had murdered, agreed to meet with him at the prison. Personally, I would assume that I would never want to meet with a man who murdered my husband, but I guess until you're actually in that situation, you don't know what you would want to do. It's even weirder that she agreed to bring Minor books; why would she want to help this man?
Additionally, I found it to be very interesting and amazing to learn a bit about how the Oxford English Dictionary was made. I guess I had never really thought about how a dictionary was made, but I would imagine that it would be an immense amount of work. I learned that "[The] dictionary was all about the gathering of hundreds of thousands of quotations...[The quotations] were to be written on half sheets of writing paper. [The target word] was to be written at the top left. The crucial date of the quotation should be written just below it, then the name of the author and title of the cited book, the page number, and finally, the full text of the sentence being quoted" (page 134-135). I suppose it would be good work for someone in prison to do, because they have nothing better to do.
It's funny, because as I'm writing this, I have my TV on in the background. I just heard Conan O'Brien say, "The new Oxford Dictionary has declared Sarah Palin's made-up word, refutiate, to be the 2010 word of the year...Palin was honored, and said she'd do her best to 'dismangle' the English Language." I thought that was funny, but I also LOVE Conan! It's interesting how new words keep being added to the dictionary, but I wonder how easy or difficult it is to get a new word into the dictionary. Naturally, I Googled it, and found a website that briefly explains it. "Merriam-Webster and Oxford have different standards for putting words into dictionaries. According to Merriam-Webster's explanation of how a word is chosen to be printed into a dictionary, 'The answer is simple: usage.' If a word is used frequently, it is a candidate for the dictionary." Also, "It isn't so easy for a word to leap onto the pages of an Oxford Dictionary. According to Blowin' in the Wind, 'The OED is conservative in its approach to language, keeping out newfangled words until they have been around for a few years at least. But once a word gets into the dictionary, it stays there forever.' "
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