<http://schema.org/articleBody>
"   I detest non-fiction books that are about fulfilling some type of quest or task. I find them boring and gratingly gimmicky. The gimmick seems to work, as people are guaranteed a book deal and decent sales if they commit to doing something irreverent, like, say, traveling to work by pogo-stick for a year, and can waste trees going on about the mean things people shouted from their cars and the lessons learned about commuting outside of the box.  Feeling as I do, I expected to hate Ammon Shea&amp;#039;s Reading the OED for the above reasons and because everyone lurves it. But I didn&amp;#039;t hate it. Yes, reading the OED in a year is a bit of a gimmick, and the book itself isn&amp;#039;t accomplishing anything dramatic. But it&amp;#039;s an easy, entertaining read and Shea pulls out a lot of really good words, such as: Latibulate (v.) To hide oneself in a corner. I own the compact OED and I adore it, but I don&amp;#039;t want to spend a year reading the whole thing, or read the whole thing ever. But the OED is amazing, and as Shea points out, it&amp;#039;s really interesting to see what a word used to mean, and necessary if you&amp;#039;re reading an older text because many words meant something different in the 16th century. It&amp;#039;s a great dictionary for Shakespeare.  To counteract the pretentiousness of my last statement, I will say that the best part of owning the OED is playing with it when intoxicated. If you have one, bring it out at your next party. You are never too old or drunk to ponder the etymology of pussy or shit. Promise. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/entertainment/books/a4937/reading-the-oed-blog/>