William Chester Minor, Union Surgeon and Madman... Word Detective?

5fish

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William Chester Minor was a Union Surgeon in the later parts of the war. After the war, he moved to England because he thought he was being hunted down to be killed by a man he wrong. He was mentally ill... He helped with the writing of the Oxford Dictionary...

I have to read the multitude of links I leave to get the breath of his story...


A vocabulary is a literate person’s best friend. And a dictionary keeps a person updated on new words, their meanings and usage, and helps users expand their vocabulary. When one talks of a dictionary, the first name that pops up in mind is the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), one of the most widely accepted wordbooks in the world. But did you ever think about people who came up with comprehensive synonyms for a single word or how they managed to compile all the information in a single book? Well then, here’s an interesting piece of the story about Dr William Chester Minor, an army surgeon, who was one of the top contributors to the Oxford English Dictionary

Here is another link...


Dr. William Chester Minor's life is stranger than fiction. That an American surgeon came to be one of the largest contributors to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) is surprising. That he wrote his entries while confined in a psychiatric facility is mind-boggling. The account of this bizarre tale is well-documented by Simon Winchester in his book, The Professor and the Madman. The dictionary has been hailed as one of the greatest literary works in the history of the English language. Although the roots of the OED go back to 1857, it wasn't until 1878 that former schoolmaster Professor James Murray took over the dictionary project that the Oxford University Press eventually published. Contributors to the multi-volume work of 414,825 definitions included historians, philologists, businessmen, clergymen, and one murderer.

While most OED contributors had mundane occupations like banking, teaching, or writing, Minor played the flute and read voraciously. He did this while inside his comfortable two-room cell at the Broadmoor Asylum, five miles from Oxford.
Upon learning that Murray needed wordsmiths, Minor began corresponding with the man. Ironically, Murray had no idea that one of his most prolific volunteers had been judged criminally insane.

Here another...



Classification: Homicide
Characteristics: Haunted by his paranoia - One of the largest contributors of quotations to the Oxford English Dictionary
Number of victims: 1
Date of murder: February 17, 1872
Date of arrest: Same day
Date of birth: June 1834
Victim profile: George Merritt, 34
Method of murder: Shooting
Location: London, England, United Kingdom
Status: Found not guilty on grounds of insanity on April 6, 1872. Detained "until Her Majesty's Pleasure be known" as a "certified criminal lunatic". Died on March 16, 1920
 

5fish

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Here is another but each link add details the other links leave out...


Over the course of 20 years, Minor made an incomparable contribution to the writing of the OED. Murray called his efforts “enormous,” acknowledging that within a two year period, Minor supplied at least 12,000 quotations.

His grave...


The Criminally Insane, Broadmoor. There he painted, played flute, and amazingly enough, befriended his victim's widow, donating money to her and her seven children. Circa 1880 he answered a call for contributors printed by Dr. James Murray, mastermind of what eventually became the Oxford English Dictionary.
 

5fish

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Here is the editor of the OED


Here a link with more detail about Murray...


Murray was born in Denholm, in the southeastern Scottish border region, on February 7, 1837. He was known in later life as James Augustus Henry Murray, taking two middle names in order to avoid confusion on the part of postal services with another James Murray living in Oxford. Murray's father, Thomas, was a tailor, and his mother, Mary, was the daughter of a linen maker. Although nothing in his background suggested that he would undertake a scholarly career, he quickly showed a talent for languages: at 18 months, he knew his English letters, and as a child, he mastered the Greek alphabet as well as passages in Hebrew and Chinese that he copied from translated Bibles. Murray would eventually gain some competence in 25 languages, including Arabic, Hindi, Tongan, and ancient Gothic.
 

5fish

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If you read through the links Dr. Minor was suppose to be at the battle of the Wilderness but it looks he did not arrive until after that battle. He branding deserters with the letter D most likely did not happen because it was stopped early in the war...


Alternatives to execution varied. In 1861 Confederate laws allowed for flogging up to thirty-nine lashes and branding the convicted man with the letter “D.” Branding had been used in the pre-Civil War Union army as well. However, both sides abandoned the practice and the Confederate congress removed both flogging and branding as acceptable forms of punishment early in the war. Short of execution, soldiers could be incarcerated in the stockade and subjected to a variety of non-lethal punishments designed to humiliate the offender. Men could be forced to wear a wooden sign indicating they deserted or displayed cowardice. Being drummed out of the army, while available as a punishment alternative, also ran contrary to the goal of keeping men in the service and was seldom used for deserters. Another common punishment, wearing an iron ball and chain, not only served to shame the offender, but also made deserting more difficult if not impossible.
 

diane

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There is a good movie on this: The Professor and the Madman. It's based on the book The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary by Simon Winchester.

 

5fish

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There is a good movie on this: The Professor and the Madman. It's based on the book The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary by Simon Winchester.

I watched the movie... It inspired the post...
 
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