With the publication of today’s update to the entry for tidy, I’ve finally completed the overhaul of Wordorigin.org’s Big List. That’s 1,223 entries* by my count, which took six years and two weeks. I started the update effort back in March 2020 as a pandemic project. When I began, I expected that the effort would outlast the lockdown, but six years is longer than I had imagined.
I started this site back in 1997. Because I changed hosts several times in the intervening decades, I’m not sure how old the oldest entry was, but it probably dated to c. 2000. And some of the oldest entries were a bit sketchy in the scholarship behind them. In the meantime, I got a PhD, learned how to research properly, and obtained access to university libraries with their vast databases. So now, with the update complete, the entire Big List is up to snuff and contains bibliographic data for its claims.
Needless to say, I don’t think I’ll ever attempt this again.
That’s not to say I won’t be updating individual entries as I notice the need. Antedatings are always being found, and I’m sure there are errors in the list that have slipped by me. And of course I’ll be adding new entries.
But for now, I’m heaving a great sigh of relief, and tonight I’ll treat myself to a tumbler of Lagavulin.
* = This number includes new entries since the update effort began as well as old entires updated.
Photo credit: Warner Bros., 2013. Screenshot from Baz Luhrmann’s film The Great Gatsby.
