I watched a movie last night about the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary. Actually, it was about two men key to the creation of the dictionary, but without the dictionary there would have been no story. So, for me the OED got the title role. I was fully satisfied when the movie ended because I knew a little bit more about how the dictionary came into being. The big win was learning about those two men who played key roles, mainly because I knew nothing about them before the film started.

The movie was based on a book of the same name, The Professor and the Madman. I may now go read it, because books and the movies based on them are almost always two different animals entirely. First of all, I doubt I could read the book in ninety minutes, and secondly, story-telling compromises need to be made as a book is converted to film. I might like to figure out what sort of compromises were made in this case. I know I could read a review, but I read one and it was real pissy, and I thought I’d hold off going down that road. Besides, I’d watched the film and liked it. What’s a critic going to help me with there?

The movie resonated with me because I’ve had a life of letters of sort, and I’m still doing it as witnessed by these daily writings and the book I just published. Granted, I’ll hardly swing the English language in a different direction, as Milton did with Paradise Lost, but I’m in the game and that’s fun. It also seems fitting that I continue trucking down this road, because my wife’s dementia manifested itself as aphasia and it occurs to me that perhaps it’s now my job to pick up all the words she lost and try to save them. That may be well-nigh impossible but trying seems a noble enterprise.