The Lost Words: Rediscover our natural world with this spellbinding book

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These are then followed by a spread showing the animal or plant in question in its natural habitat so to speak. Esme begins collecting words that will be excluded from the dictionary. As she gets older, she starts working for the Scriptorium and it was fun to see what went into putting together this dictionary.

At six years old Esme becomes enthralled with the words she finds on the slips of paper, as she sits under the work table in the Scriptorium where her father works on the Oxford English Dictionary. Later working there herself, she finds words of common usage mostly by women, words that would never make it into the dictionary from places, other than under that table. The beauty of these words Esme discovers, even those considered vulgar, is that the usage of them is real and linked to their life experiences and for Esme that is enough to confirm their importance and merit and should be preserved . Some of these words are based on her own experiences as well, both the sad, heartbreaking moments and the joyful ones. Accompanying the wonderful class book ‘The Lost Words’, this is a set of outdoor teaching resources and links to more. Phosphorescence' wins 2021 ABIA Book of the Year". Books+Publishing. 28 April 2021 . Retrieved 29 April 2021. It was announced in November 2022 that a collaboration between filmmakers Lisa Scott of Highview Productions and Rebecca Summerton of Closer Productions (who in 2019 collaborated on The Hunting) had bought the rights to adapt the book for a television series. [8] [12] Williams is co- executive producer, along with Alex Dimos and Andrew Nunn, while Anton Andreacchio is producer of the series. [13]Williams, Pip (2020), The dictionary of lost words (Dyslexic edition), ReadHowYouWant , retrieved 23 March 2021

With the suffrage movement’s rising and Great War’s looming, a new history starts written itself with the unrecorded, abandoned, neglected words! No thank you. I find it reprehensible that the horror of WWII is turned into romantic entertainment, with little or no discussion of the issues surrounding the war or the genocidal murder of millions of Jews, as well as others. The book is perfect for those that love language. But it’s also a great story, filled with lovely characters. Not just Esme, but her Da, Harry, and Ditte, a dear family friend. Ditte’s letters to Harry are interspersed throughout the book and really helped round it out, giving us a different look at Esme. The book took turns I never saw coming. It encompasses two big chapters of history - the suffragette movement and WWI. It spans from 1887 - 1989. And it shows us love, in all its permutations. The title of the book was misleading to me, I could not fathom that it isn't a catalogue of obsolete words but a full-fledged interesting narration from a female's perspective about the words omitted imperiously pertaining to females and common folks by the master-decider of a dictionary, the lexicographer, Mr. Murray and his team. I was dazed to know that a word - Catamenia existed ! Fundraising campaigns resulted in the book being donated to all schools in Scotland and Greater London, and 21 English and 3 Welsh counties.The novel is about a woman who is a lexicographer and grew up with men who were editing the Oxford English Dictionary. She wanted to be an editor, but this was not an option for women of this time period. She was fascinated by words and sought out women and words they used that, she did not know. Eventually, she wrote a “Dictionary of Lost Words”, to inspire and dedicate words from a female perspective that, would have been lost and forgotten, if not recorded over time.

In her word-collecting fever, Esme amasses much raw data, many denotations. Her goal for it remains unfocused until she realizes that the words' connotations give her the needed feminist perspective: she and her half of humanity are doomed to be controlled until they can participate in life as political actors instead of passive observers. Yes, she discovers Feminism and becomes a suffragette. And uses her life-long capacity to work with words to give sharp focus to her purpose. On one fine day, a paper-slip containing the word "bondmaid" flutters beneath the table. Upon knowing that the word belongs to her young servant friend Lizzie, she endeavors to start collecting all such ignored words into a wooden trunk. Thinking about it more deeply though (I love that the book has that effect), I agree that many people no longer care much for the natural world and might have seen brambles at some point, but aren't aware what exactly they are. Or they call an adder simply a snake. Or they don't know the difference between ravens and crows. I thought the work of the lexicographers and assistants was fascinating and this book encouraged me to research the creation of dictionaries further. As the author's note mentions at the end of the story, many of the people and events in this book were real. But Esme, her father, her friend Gareth, and servant Lizzie were fictional. I admired the characters of Lizzie, Gareth, and Esme's father for what seemed to be hard work during lifetimes of trying circumstances.I continued to love Esme as she grew, as her collection and love of words grew, as the Oxford Dictionary's entries swelled, as she questioned why some words were excluded. I loved her awakening awareness of gender exclusion, class exclusion and the resulting toll on those left out. I admired her determination to find everyday words known only by everyday people. Her love of words was so broad and accepting, never too racy, never too forbidden. I loved how the inclusion of these words gave those who were powerless, who felt lowly and forgotten, a sense of worth. To wish for the restoration of this ‘positive connection’ is not to lament a “lost golden age”, says Macfarlane, or to favour nature to the exclusion of technology, “rather it is to engage with much broader inequalities within society, and to seek to increase both what is good for nature and what is good for children.” I have to admit: this book needs your patience, attention, full focus. Especially first third is overwhelmingly slow but when you get into the story and lose yourself in the precious world of words, connecting with Esme and the preparation process of first Oxford dictionary, your curiosity takes over and you get more excited to learn more by becoming part of the world and linguistics. Esme is born into a world of words. Motherless and irrepressibly curious, she spends her childhood in the ‘Scriptorium’, a garden shed in Oxford where her father and a team of dedicated lexicographers are collecting words for the very first Oxford English Dictionary. Esme’s place is beneath the sorting table, unseen and unheard. One day a slip of paper containing the word ‘bondmaid’ flutters to the floor. Esme rescues the slip and stashes it in an old wooden case that belongs to her friend, Lizzie, a young servant in the big house. Esme begins to collect other words from the Scriptorium that are misplaced, discarded or have been neglected by the dictionary men. They help her make sense of the world. Capturing the imagination of folk music's finest, ...gently reflective collection of original songs" Mojo

After reading, based on the recommendation from a good friend, Simon Winchester's The Surgeon of Crowthorne: a tale of murder, madness & the love of words (published in the US as The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary), Williams was left with the distinct impression that "the Dictionary was a particularly male endeavor" — as she writes in the Author's Note at the end. She soon "gleans ... all the editors were men ... most of the literature, manuals, and newspaper articles used as evidence for how words were used, were written by men." And thus began her foundation and the desire to create something of her own here:In London, The Big Green Bookshop took only four days to raise enough funds to donate a book to the primary schools in the London Borough of Haringey. Knoxland’s Primary 5 pupil's write songs, raps and poems about venturing into their nearby woods with Tullochan to explore The Lost Words and dream of being wild animals. Watch here a b Case, Jo (8 May 2020). "A few words in your ear about gender, dictionaries and kindness". The Sydney Morning Herald . Retrieved 23 March 2021. The relationship is pretty tidily encapsulated there. Older mentor, not quite understanding the mentee but giving great guidance anyway; just not quite what was really needed. The words for things are centered; the denotations are generously given, while the connotations are left more or less to Esme's maturing brain to construct as best she can. She is, after all, equipped with well-designed tools...but no manuals to train their user in their best use.