As a follow-up post on Scrabble, here are some additional resources. To get down to the very basics about words, here’s a book that explains the origins of the alphabet, and how it influenced civilization and the world. Alpha Beta by John Man is a quick read that makes the complicated, convoluted history of letters accessible. It traces the development of the alphabet from ancient Egypt through the Phoenicians and on to the Soviets. Somehow, it packs in a lot of history without getting too stuffy.

Another of those little histories of little things that changed the world, The Professor and the Madman is the story of the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary. I never would have believed something as mundane as a dictionary could have such a riveting book written about it, but this book is amazing! The OED took over 70 years to write, and there are so many stories about the dedicated contributors and how the dictionary was developed. Simon Winchester actually found so much to write about the development of the OED that he wrote a second book, The Meaning of Everything, after he finished The Professor and the Madman, with even more stories behind the creation of the largest dictionary ever made.

On a slightly different, though related topic, Lynne Truss’s Eats, Shoots, and Leaves, must be mentioned in any post about words and language. This book was a best seller for years and on many reading lists. If you haven’t had time to read it, yet, why don’t you check it out now?

Tags: documentaries, microhistories, Scrabble Club, words

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 13th, 2008 at 10:23 am and is filed under Fairborn, News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response.