The Oxford English Dictionary, with its wide range of word meanings, detailed etymologies, and inexhaustible supply of illustrative quotations, has always been a treasure trove for word-lovers across the world.

You might just be looking for the basic meaning of a single word, but the OED offers you much more. It enthralls you with the history of over 6,00,000 words, traced through 3 million quotations from classic literature and periodicals.

Ever wondered how the OED came to be what it is today? In 1879, Prof James Murray was assigned the task of putting together the first edition of the OED. Murray had a herculean task—compiling quotations to illustrate the definition of each word. And, of course, it was something Murray could never have attempted on his own.

Call went out for volunteers to contribute to the making of the OED with quotations for each word. It worked. Bundles of entries kept coming in. The most prolific and one of Murray's most frequent contributors was Dr William C. Minor, a surgeon from Crowthorne village in the English countryside of Berkshire. Minor supplied Murray with more than 10,000 quotations. Impressed, Murray would repeatedly invite Minor to meet him at Oxford. That, however, never happened. Minor would always turn down the invitation citing an inconvenience.

Murray might have thought of Minor as an expert medical practitioner with literary interests, but one who had no time to spare for the journey to Oxford. So, Murray decided to go meet this enigmatic helper in person. As Murray travelled over 50 miles by train from Oxford to Crowthorne, he certainly was not prepared for what he would discover. Minor, probably one of the greatest contributors to the English language, was an inmate of the Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum! This explained why Minor never met Murray over the 20 years of their correspondence.

The strange story of Murray and Minor was the subject of Simon Winchester's book, The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary, which went on to become a bestseller.

Journey of the mind

Minor was an American and a veteran of the Civil War. In 1868, Minor was diagnosed as 'delusional' and was admitted to the Government Hospital for the Insane in Washington, D.C. (known as St Elizabeth’s Hospital). He officially retired from the US Army.

After he was released in 1871, he moved to London to recuperate. Minor's paranoia, however, followed him. He believed people were breaking into his room while he slept. One night, Minor shot and killed George Merrett, who was on his way to work. Minor had thought Merrett was an intruder. During the trial, the full scope of Minor’s mental illness came out, and he was committed to the Asylum for the Criminally Insane in Broadmoor.

When he was 76, he was given permission to return to America to live out his last days. Murray and his wife went to Broadmoor to say goodbye in person, and gave Minor six unpublished volumes of the OED.

Minor returned to the Government Hospital for the Insane. During the nine years he lived there, he was diagnosed with schizophrenia. He was later moved to a hospital for the elderly insane in Connecticut. About a year later, Minor died of pneumonia in his sleep.