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Dictionaries started with Dr Johnson’s and we now have the Oxford English
Dictionary and there’s the Collins one and Webster’s in the US. Right? Not
quite. Chasing the Sun (Jonathan Cape, £25, ISBN 0 224 04010 3) by
Jonathon Green shows dictionarial history goes back to the Sumerian, is rife
with political manoeuvring, dissension —and bias: Chambers’ Twentieth
Century Dictionary defines “noose” as “a snare or bond generally, esp. hanging
or marriage”. There is action, too. Johnson barricading his house to keep out an
enraged unpaid milkman is one of many scenes that increase the book’s
beguilement.