How did Reference Books Shape Civilization? (And what will their death mean?)

there was this huge campaign to bring it back. And the thing is, if enough people keep using it, the editor of the Webster's Dictionary said he'd consider adding it back in. In fact, the word chad was on the shortlist to get kicked out too, and then infamous Florida election debaccle occurred and suddenly the word was back. So what you're saying is we just have to interfere with an election or something similarly big to get the words

snollygoster back into play. Yeah, I mean, you know, look, there there are no bad ideas and brainstorming, but getting a sneak peek at how the dictionary works is just part of today's show. Today we're diving into the weird world of reference from almanacs to encyclopedias, all to get a better look at the human fascination for cataloging knowledge in the delightfully skimmable way. So let's dig in, ye

he their podcast listeners, Welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm Will Pearson and as always I'm joined by my good friend man guest Shot Ticketer. And on the other side of the soundproof glass the only person I know who's reading the Dictionary cover to cover, and actually he's already reviewed it on good Reads. That's our friend and producer Tristan McNeil. Yeah, and he actually gave it a scathing review.

He found the whole thing disjointed, and uh, he didn't like how the art vark at the beginning of the book didn't show up later in the story. I get it, I get it. He's he's a pretty tough judge. Well, speaking of dictionaries, today's show is all about the weird world of reference books. You know, from a young age most of us are trained to turn to diction areas or the sauruses and all these other reference books for our linguistic and grammatical needs. But how did these exhaustive

reference books come to be? Why are there so many competing versions? And just how relevant are they in today's increasingly digital world. So these are the kinds of questions we're gonna be tackling today, right, And the start things off, I thought we could look at the granddaddy of all reference books, the encyclopedia. So it's encyclopedia the oldest. Like people, it seems like people would have started with dictionaries though, right, yeah,

that's what I would have guessed too. I mean, like the idea of cataloging all of the current words seems to be way easier than I don't know, like trying to record every single thing ever known. But that's not where humans chose to begin. So the first encyclopedias can be traced back to ancient Syria in twelve seventy b c. It wasn't called an encyclopedia in those days. In fact, the word encyclopedia didn't come in to use until the fifteen hundreds, and that word is a Latinized take on

this ancient Greek phrase for general education. But the more interesting definition is literal one, which is training in a circle. So why a circle? I mean, were these encyclopedias around or something? No, so the circle was this common symbol for the liberal arts, like the seven areas of arts and sciences that were deemed necessary for making a well

rounded person. All right, well, that's a good title, But it is funny to think of an encyclopedia as everything you need to know, especially when you consider some of the weird stuff that wound up in the really early ones. So what are you talking about. One of the most famous early encyclopedias is the one as symboled in the first century a d by the Roman naturalists Pliny the Elder, and it's full of information that's hilarious but maybe not

so reputable. So despite calling his epic thirty seven book Encyclopedia the Historia Naturalists or natural history, Pliny had some questionable ideas about the inner workings of the human body, and one of the funniest examples is his woeful misunderstanding of women's bodies and specifically periods. So I'm going to

read how he describes it. He says, on the approach of a woman in this state, seeds which you're touched by her comes sterile garden plants are parched up, and the fruit will fall from the tree beneath which she said, her very look will dim the brightness of mir hers, blunt the edge of steel, and take away the polish from ivory. A swarm of bees, if looked upon by her,

will die immediately. Brass and iron will instantly become rusty and admit an offensive odor, while dogs, which may have tasted of the matter so discharged, are seized with madness, and their bite is venomous and incurable. Well, I don't know about you, but it sounds like Pliny was a real feminist. Had he even met a woman like it feels like it would be so easy to disprove all of the stuff I know. But that wasn't the only inaccuracy in Pliny's books, you know. For example, he provided

one of the earliest descriptions of unicorns. So Pliny wrote, the unicorn is the fiercest animal, and it has said that it is impossible to capture one alive. It has the body of a horse, the head of a stag, the feet of an elephant, the tail of a boar, and a single black horn three ft long in the middle of its forehead. I'm glad you gave everyone like

a definitive account of what a unicorn. Looks like the only party got right with the horn part right nailed it on that though, But really, I mean, I don't think we should pick on the Romans too much, because when Encyclopedia has finally made their leave to England in seventeen sixty eight, they were still cramed full of like terrible fictional entries. So seventeen sixty eight is actually the

year the Encyclopedia Britannica was first made. It was assembled by three Scottish men and it consisted of just three volumes at the time. So nowadays the first edition is mostly interesting as kind of a record of people's priorities in the eighteenth century and just how little does line up with our own? So what do you mean by that? So the encyclopedia includes forty pages about horse disease, there is no information about children, and only four words on

on the entry for women. Well, I mean, after that Pliny description, I'm almost afraid to ask, but what were those four words? It's it's super definitive the female of man. I mean, I guess I see what you mean about skewed priorities on this. I mean, it's ridiculous. They took the time to calculate the exact number of animal species that were on Noah's Ark, but they couldn't spend more than four words on half the human population. But did

they really record how many animals were on Noah's Ark? Yeah, apparently there were a hundred seventy seven, which also doesn't seem right right. But there's some entries where, you know, you kind of have to give it to the Scots for creativity. So there's one for the cure of flatulence that they say consists of drinking cammill t and then uh, blowing pipe smoke up your bomb. Or the entry on Vermicelli noodles is amazing is described as a food and great vogue with the Italians due to its use as

an aphrodisiac. Uh. You know, I was actually looking at this edition as well, and one of the entries I love from that first Encyclopedia Britannica is the one on California. Now, just for the record, the region wouldn't become a state for close to a hundred years after this publication, so really not much was known about it. But they didn't even bother to spell check the thing. So California is

mistakenly spelled with two els. Also, it's referred to as quote a large country of the West Indies unknown whether it's an island or a peninsula or neither maybe, But I mean you kind of have to love their confidence, right And also as funny as accidental inaccuracies can be, I actually still prefer the intentional ones. And I know you and I have talked about this before, but editors of reference books sometimes include fake entries as a means

of preventing plagiarism from their competitors. And the ideas if you use a made up word and then that subject appears in arrivals reference book, the originator can accuse the other of poaching the entries, you know, which qualifies as copyright infringement. Yeah, it's pretty crazy, and it is fascinating to follow these things that you know, I know, in an atlas they're called paper towns, you know, like the places that are made up on maps. But so how

long has this been going on? So for at least a century. In dictionaries and encyclopedias that are called Mount Weasels, which comes from a phony entry in the nine edition of the New Columbia Encyclopedia. According to the original entry on her, Lillian Virginia mount Weasel was an American photographer

who received a government grant to take pictures of rural mailboxes. Sadly, Lillian died in a freak explosion while an assignment, where the equally fictitious Combustibles magazine man This one's kind of a shame though, that this one shouldn't be made up. I would totally read Combustibles Magazine. I know me too. But Lillian's story does have a happy ending of sorts. Like her imaginary life has since been commemorated in the form of real Dictionary entries for the word mount weasel.

That's pretty great, actually, I just pulled up a list of mount weasels here, and there's some really good ones out there. So we've got a Papula do balia, which was this made up Greco Roman sports similar to modern soccer. And this one actually maybe is my favorite. Esquavalience, which is defined as a purposeful error made to easily spot plagiarizers.

I love that. I feel like I missed a calling just making up definitions for fake words, all right, So there's obviously a ton more we could say about encyclopedias. But since we're talking definitions, let's let's put the encyclopedia back on the shelf and spend some time with what's probably the most popular type of reference book, and that's,

of course, dictionaries. Just like with the idea of assembling a compendium of knowledge, the concept of listing out all the words in a given language is one that dates back thousands of years. But for our purposes, let's stick with the modern period of dictionaries. You know, when the English version began cropping up around you know, say the

seventeenth century or so. And why is that. Well, the number of words in the English language actually doubled between fifteen hundred and sixteen fifty, and this was largely due to the Renaissance, which brought a wealth of words derived from Latin and Greek to British lips for the very first time. But it was also a time when travelers and traders from foreign countries were mingling new words into

Europe's vocabulary. So all these unfamiliar new words coupled with the rise of printed books, it really set the stage for the world's first English dictionary, and that came along in sixteen oh, four complements of a schoolmaster named Robert Caudrey. It's so funny. They are all these names, I know, like Webster and Roget, but I've never heard of Caudrey. Yeah. Well, you know Caudrey's table alphabetical, as he called it. It

wasn't exactly a general language dictionary. It's it's what's called a hard word dictionary, and it basically provided easy to understand definitions for all these new and difficult foreign words which had kind of made their way into the English language during the previous decades. That's really interesting. So when did the first more general dictionary come about? The well, the idea of a general dictionary for everyday words, it kind of didn't catch on until maybe seventy or so

years later. And it was a man named Elisha Coles who who published this dictionary that added regional terms. He also added slang and just some other common words to the existing slate of hard words from the previous books. Well, I'm kind of glad you mentioned the inclusion of slang because there's one slang dictionary in particular that I really want to talk about. But before we get to that, let's take a quick break you're listening to part time genius,

and we're talking about the surprisingly strange world of reference books. Now, most people are familiar by this point with the dictionary makers like Samuel Johnson and Noah Webster, and you know, for good reason. It was in seventeen fifty five that Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language was introduced as the most comprehensive one to date. It was the very first to use quotations to help illustrate how words could actually

be used. And then came Webster's Dictionary that was published in eighteen twenty eight, and it was one of the first lexicons to include definitions of more than ten thousand americanisms. These had never been included in the British dictionaries, you know, where it's like skunk and squash and chowder. And the book was a product of more than two decades of work and was crucial in helping standardize English spelling, things

like dropping the U and color for instance. But you know, as important as these contributions where there there's a different story that you were saying you wanted to tell today, right, And I go, yeah, so those guys are great, and it isn't an exaggeration to say our language wouldn't be the same without them. But they're not the only one that's true of And that's why I want to make sure we talked about the Hepster Dictionary, which is a compendium of Harlem slang that's believed to be the first

dictionary written by an African American. Oh wow, I've actually never heard of this. So who's the author? So that's one of the really cool things about it. It was written by Cat Callaway, who's you know, the legendary jazz musicians and band leader you could also do the moonwalk. And by the way, he retired in Delaware because you know, it was a short train ride from Baltimore and New York City. Glad you were able to work in your

Delaware factory. Yeah, But in the ninety twenties and thirties, Cab Callaway was this mainstay in the Harlem music scene, and the neighborhood had become a center of African American culture, you know, with the Harlem Renaissance and all that. And as Aaron Blakemore put it in her article on history dot Com, quote Harlem was full of slang. Jazz musicians like Callaway talk jive a kind of shorthand that turned ordinary conversation into an extended, jazzy riff. It was also

a matter of survive. Though it was spoken in public, it was a way for African Americans to communicate privately, a kind of linguistic rebellion that was as serious as it was humorous. That's pretty awesome and so obviously Callaway was familiar with jive, But how did he come to

write the Dictionary on it? Well, his songs were full of words and phrases that eventually wound up in the dictionary and gave actually jotted down a few of these for me, like cool Groovy, Chick, moocher, Boogie Woogie, jitterbug, and come again. There's all you know, we're used by him. But but the idea to compile all of them in print came in the late thirties when Cab Callaway noticed that black musicians were being pushed aside by white swing

musicians and they kind of co opted the sound. So to keep himself in the culture, he helped pioneer relevant. Cab and his manager worked together on this slender pamphlet that defined jib for audiences who had never heard the streets Lang before it was published in eight I believe, and and it became a hit with both black and white readers, And in fact, he did seven volumes of the thing, and it even became the official reference book of Jive and the New York Public Library, which was

something Cab was immensely proud of. Yeah, and I love that, you know, even though it seems to have indirectly saddled us with the the you know, the hipsters of today, It's it's so great that Callaway chronicled that moment in black culture, and the Harlem Renaissance was soon eclipsed by the Great Depression. So you know, we're pretty lucky to have all that culture and not have it lost to

history exactly. And I actually heard this BBC interview with a British poet about cabs dictionary, and he had this really great insight about it. As he put it, quote, Cab Callaway was taking ownership of language for people who just a few generations before had their own languages taken away.

Oh yeah, I mean I haven't thought of that. But you know, since since we're talking about how dictionaries come together, I do want to talk a little bit about what it takes to get a new word added to the dictionary, because there is a process to it, and it's one

that we don't hear about often. I mean, sure, we hear about the list of the new words that Miriam Webster adds with each new addition, or at least more decidedly modern additions, you know, things like crowdsourcing and man spread or even o MG which was added, But you know, you don't hear much about how these new words are actually chosen to be included. Yeah, that's a good point. So first of all, who does decide what gets added? Well, that's left up to the lexicographers and and for anyone

who doesn't have their own reference book handy. Those are the people whose job it is to compile dictionaries. They pay attention to whenever a new word or phrase becomes popular, and then they start collecting citations of the word, including

its contextual meaning. They comb through this database to find evidence that the word has cropped up over time among this diverse group of people, and when that big case file is assembled, the last step is for the dictionary editors to review the evidence and decide whether or not to include the new word and the next edition of their company's dictionary. So it basically boils down to like popularity and usage, which makes sense. But what about the

words we removed from the dictionary? Is it really just a matter of determining how many people are still using a certain word? Well, that's where things get a little bit more complicated. You know. The way it works is that the editors try to determine and which words are most relevant today, and then then they go back and weed out the ones that are most definitely not being used as much today. So editors might assemble a list

of potential cuts. You've got obscure words like crunch or pro land or octandrias that have all then cut from the dictionary. Crunch like crunchy, wrench dressing. Oh that's cross. I think it's a loud noise or actually I found a Scottish reference book that said it's an alternative for crunch, which is to crunch with your mouth. Apparently, I don't know why we need another word for that, but it's no longer in the dictionary, so you really don't have to worry about it at this point. I like that

there's crunch, cringe, and crunch. Yeah, you just need to crunch. But I interrupted. You were talking about how words get tossed from the dictionary, right, So, so the editors have a list of words that aren't used that often, and then they search through sources like Google books or other dictionaries and of course the Internet, and they try to see how frequently these words turn up. And they're always exceptions to you know, for example, the and thou don't

really pop up much in everyday conversation anymore. But since they're so prevalent in all these widely read books, they're pretty safe from the chopping blot. Okay, that makes sense. And I actually remember reading this book word Freak by Steven fatsis about the world of competitive scrabble, and one of the things I remember best from it was these people who would petition to have words put back into

the dictionary. They were just these word lovers who would spend their free time, I mean, when they weren't dominating at scrabble, just fighting to have words reintegrated into the English language. But here's my question, like, why target words for removal at all? Is it just to save on printing costs? And I think the bigger concern is that the dictionary will become too massive and unwilldy to use if nothing is ever omitted from it. But practicality isn't

even the only reason that words get cut. I mean, if you think about it, there are plenty of online dictionaries that don't have to worry about the space that they take up, But they don't include every single word from English language either, and that's largely because most dictionaries are trying to present the current state of semantics, you know, the words that most typify our language and kind of

in the here and now if you think about it. So, you know, the only exception I could think of is the Oxford English Dictionary, like the o e D, which is more concerned with chronicling and preserving English and its entirety. And to that end, the o e D doesn't remove words or definitions. Instead, they just know when a particular word or meeting is outdated. Yeah, yeah, that that is

an interesting exception to this. Well, you know, as long as we're talking about the intentions behind reference books, I feel like we should go ahead and cover the other two biggies of the reference world, and those would be the stars and almanacs. Yeah, but before we do that. Let's take a quick break. Okay, Mango, it's quiz time.

I know we're talking reference books today, so we thought it would be appropriate to bring in one of our favorite podcasters here at How Stuff Works and someone known for doing an intense amount of research before any of his episodes. Scott Benjamin. Welcome to Part Time Genius. Thank you for men. I appreciate it. You guys may know Scott from Car Stuff, and that's what I have to admit.

You sit right across from us in the office, and when we look over and see these stacks of research, it kind of makes us feel like maybe we're not doing enough. I feel like I I read at least two books, give a bunch of books for for every episode, and then I see this, like like half a meter high stack of papers that they're just giving through dreams of paper. I do it the old school way, I guess. I'm I'm I'm an analog guy, right, so, um, I don't bring a laptop in with me to podcasts, which

I think almost everybody does. Yeah, everything is on paper. I've got color coded tabs, I've got notes everywhere. It's a it's kind of a mess, but it's a mess that I know how to work with. Wow, I thought maybe it was an intimidation tactic. Do I remember this story correctly? That there was a legend about Karl Rove, like when he was on the debate team in high school and he would wheel in this huge cart with all of these containers full of where they were supposed

to be full of index cards, right that notes. It was just an intimidation tactic. And it turns out that most of them were just blank, but they were just there to make it seem like he had prepped more than anyone. I'll show you my stack of notes. I'll share, but there's there's notes everywhere in there. It's it's quite a mess, and no one else would be able to put it together with the information that I compile, I just know where everything is. Yeah, it's a system that's unbelievable.

How many episodes of car Stuff did you did you host? I'm gonna say it's it was approaching nine hundred. I don't know an exact number, but a hundred. We were. We were on air for nine years and one month. It was a long time. Wow, Wow, very cool. It's an unbelievable archive there that it's really fun to dig into. And also I so want to tell the listeners like about your new show, but I know we've got to

kep under wraps. I'm so excited for it though. Yeah, we've got something in the works that hopefully everybody will also be on board with. But it's it's exciting. Yeah, we're gonna have you on again to debut that when when when it comes out? Very cool. We're talking reference books today and playing a game with Scott. What's it called? Mego? It's called real nonfiction title or something we made up.

So every year the Diagram Book Group gives a prize at the Frankfurt Book Fair for the year's oddest title. So every one of these titles is either going to be one of those strange books or something we made up. Wait are you saying real nonfiction? That's it? Yes, this is a real nonfiction title or something we made up in terms of a title. Okay, I'll do my bus all right, you ready to play? Here we go number one. The first title is Managing a Dental Practice the Genghis

Khan way real or something we made up? Oh my gosh, I'm going to say that's made up? Oh what is it? Mango? It's actually real. It's real. Yeah. It won the Diagram Prize in two thousand ten. Okay, here we go, you start, have plenty of time to come back, all right. Number two, A Field Guide to mid Century Water Slides of North Dakota. A Field Guide to the mid century water Slides of North Dakota. I'm gonna say that it's not real. I don't know how you tell the difference between the mid

century and the most of mid century. That one had mango written? All okay. Number three, The Commuter Pig Keeper, A comprehensive guy to keeping pigs when time is your most precious commodity. Okay, um, I'm gonna say that one's real. Is that one real? Mango? Yeah, it's absolutely real. The Commuter Pig Keeper, a comprehensive guy to keeping pigs when time is your most precious keeper. I needed three breaths to say that as a Commuter pig Keeper. We're gonna

have to get ahold of this book. I feel like you're gonna need it for research for probably for your next project. Guess so, alright, you're two out of three. The next one the Circus Performers Index for high Performance stilt Makers. Sorry, I'm trying to keep the Circus Performers Index for High Performance stilt Makers real or something we made up. This one is going to be made up, Yes, high performance stilts. I think you have more fun making this stuff up than you do with anything you work

on it. I guess you could call them high performance pogo sticks if you see those, but never still, that's where otherwise it's been the Circus Performance Index for high performance What poco sticks piece of would have been? All over piece of wood. Okay, here we go. Number five Goblin Proofing One's Chicken Coop. Stop it mango. Goblin Proofing One's Chicken Coop real nonfiction or something we made up.

That one feels like it's real. You know. It came out in two thousand twelve and it's a guide to banishing ferries from both your home and your chickens. Gobbling Proofing Chicken Coop. He is on a roll. The last one for the big prize. The title is crazy Cool

Ideas for Bedazzling your thrift store straight Jackets. Crazy Cool Ideas for bedazzling your thrift store straight jack straight if you hadn't thrown straight jackets in I would say that was real any other garment, but straight jackets now, is that right? Mango? Yeah, that was pretty impressive. Have you ever found a straight jacket at a thrift store? I can't say that I have. Have you? I I thought were about to get something there, saw some concern on

your face. But what an unusual findal especially be dazzled one? Right? That's why I love that title. It's like, oh, yeah, there's a whole community of people who find their their straight jackets at the store. Right where do you get them? You love that title that you made up. So Mango, Um,

how did Scott do today? Scott win amazing five for six and that entitles them to our prize this week, which is a real book called The Stray Shopping Carts of Eastern North America, a guide to field identification that one I would have guessed is false as a real one. H Well, Scott, thanks so much for joining us today. Well, thank you for allowing me to play. I appreciate it. Okay, Well, so answer the question on everyone's mind? Is it really

the sources and not the sore? I is that on everybody's I think you might be overstating the demand for that answer, but I'll admit it, I was curious about this as well, so I decided to look it up, and it turns out both are perfectly acceptable to say, although if you want to get technical, Grammar's points out that the correct way to pluralize the Latin word the saurs would be to add the suffix i, which means

the sorry is technically the proper pluralization. I feel like I've got to carry around too the sources just to be able to bring that up in the exactly. But as long as we're on the words etymology, I'll go ahead and mention that, unlike Encyclopedia, the sores actually has this really straightforward meeting. It's derived from a Greek word meaning storehouse of precious items are more simply put, treasure.

That is pretty great, and you know, plenty of writers would agree with that, including the man who supposedly wrote the very first the Saurs. His name was Philo of Biblos, and he was an ancient Greek scholar who wrote a book of synonyms titled on Synonyms. I mean, it feels like Pilo missed a great opportunity to drop in a bunch of subheads like on synonyms, also a bunch of word alternate substitutes and equivalence I found for you. But

was Filo really the first to find this? Well, Filo was first, I mean his book came out in the first and second century CE. But for my money, the most interesting early thesaurus was actually written a couple of centuries later. It was in the fourth century CE by an Indian poet name A. Mara Senna, and his book of Sanskrit words. Wasn't your typical stuffy thesaurus. Senna divided

the included words into three sections. There were those relating to the divine, the earth, and everyday life, and each section contained poetic verses and integrated the words so that readers could have an easier time remembering them. It's actually kind of an extraordinary accomplishment. And you know, while we know of philos thesaurus only through mentions in other people's writings, copies of A. Mara Senna's books still survive today and

that makes it the oldest the stars in existence. That's so crazy that I've never heard of him. I mean, I also don't speak sanscrit and it feels like it would have come off. But let's go ahead to the man whose name has become synonymous with the Sources or the Sore, and that's Peter Mark Roge. So Roj was the British doctor behind the world's most well known the Sris. But he actually got a start in reference books by working as a contributor on medical topics for the Encyclopedia Britannica.

So he was deep into reference But in eighteen o five Roj undertook a particular pastime. He started compiling words and arranging them by meaning and grouping them into these overarching themes. And even though he was still working as a physician, Roger kept up this word listing habit for forty seven years. Wow, I didn't realize it was that long.

That is insane. So so what happened after that? Well, by eighteen fifty two, Roger was ready to retire from medicine, and in his newfound free time, he decided to you know, finally share his long in the works The Source with

the public, which has an amazing title. You know what, one that follow of Wiss could have replicated Roger's The Source of English Words and Phrases, classified and arranged so as to facilitate the expression of ideas and assist in literary composition, rolls off the tongue, right, not at all? That is crazy, and so so did this take off? Yeah, inspite of the title, And I mean the book was this culmination of half a century of work, so it had to be the most comprehensive the source on the market.

It also differed from other reference books by sticking to Roget's thematic arrangement rather than just listening to the words alphabetically. But whatever the reason, the public quickly caught on and by the time roj passed away in eighteen sixty nine is the source had been reprinted twenty five times wow,

and then countless times since then too. You know. In fact, Roget's The Stars has become so successful and widely used that January eighteenth, which is the day of his birth, that's now recognized around the world as the Stars Day. You know. Since we're on the subject of reference books that have had surprising appeal and longevity even we should

definitely talk about Almanacs. So I know, and Franklin's name always gets tossed around when you mentioned Almanacs, But I think the only reason I know about modern Almanax is from Carmen San Diego, Like, do you remember that. Of course played lots of Carmen San Diego. Yeah, you needed the book to look up flags of countries and see where that these were running off too. Well, it's actually kind of genius that a computer game came boxed with a printed almanac, and I loved it, just like having

that fresh copy. It was pretty cool. But you know, we're a little off track here, and so reference books definitely have this long history, and basically almanacs had their heyday in the seventeenth and eighteen centuries. That's when people were eager for this reliable way to receive information that was pertinent to their daily lives. So weather predictions and charts detailing times of sunrises and sunsets, these were really

part of the main offerings. But almanacs expanded over the years to include everything from health advice to recipes, things like household tips. He actually even jokes and puzzles in there. I had no idea they had jokes and recipes, but they were super popular, right yeah, I mean, just to give you some idea of just how popular almanacs became. By the seventeenth century, only one publication outsold almanacs in England, and that's the art of the deal. Not quiet I'm

talking about the Bible. But it wasn't just the British going crazy for almanacs. You know, of course, your boy been Franklin's publication Poor Richard's Almanac that that also came out around this same time. So here's where I get confused, Like there's Poor Richards, there's the Farmer's Almanac. I think there's even an Old Farmer's Almanac. Like are they all the same? Not exactly, I mean, they all cover pretty similar grounds, so there is some cross over there, but

all three of those are actually different publications. The Old Farmers Almanac was founded in seventeen nine two, but the modifier old was just added retroactively once The Farmers Almanac debuted in eighteen eighteen. And are either of them still around? They are, actually both of these are still being published today. The Old Farmers Almanac even boast of being the oldest continually published periodical in the US. And there's reason to

believe them too. I mean, when the first issue was released in seventeen ninety two, George Washington was just beginning his second term as president. Wow, so our weather prediction is still a big part of them. Well, it's definitely included. I mean, the Farmer's Almanac makes weather predictions two years in advance, and both almanacs claim to have about an

eight percent accuracy for hate. I mean, you know, skeptical researchers estimate that the almanacs real accuracy is somewhere closer, like twenty five or thirty, which kind of just seems like a good guess. But you know, the really interesting thing to me is the secrecy surrounding the formula behind the Farmer's Almanac and how they make their predictions. It includes esoteric factors like the position of the planets and sunspot activity and title forces and you know, I mean

they use astronomy and math. How sophisticated is that. But you know, the actual formula is top secret, and in fact, there's only one soul on the planet who knows it. And his name is Caleb weather Be. Isn't that the principle from the Archie Coon. I don't think that's a real person. Well, you're right that the name is fake,

but the almanac swears there is a real person behind it. Apparently, the current Caleb Weatherby is the seventh person to take up the mantel and the publication's two hundred year history. He's been on the job for almost thirty years now, and since it's a lifetime gig, I mean, he'll probably

remain Caleb Weatherby until the day he dies. That's amazing. Well, one thing I've read that I find sort of fascinating about The Farmer's Almanac is the way it kind of offered a sneak peak of the information age to come. And this is something that Adrian le Franz talks about in the Atlantic and the idea is that the wide ranging information and ease of access offered by almanacs was kind of what, you know, a smartphone was going to be in the future, and, as she put it, a handheld,

portable device that contained information about all manner of things. Well, it definitely seems true that digital sources like Wikipedia and even smart devices like the Amazon Echo or Siri, I mean, they have some roots in those traditional print reference books. And I guess the biggest question right now is is

there room enough for both both of these? I mean, I kind of want to believe there is, for you know, I was looking at the numbers and sales of Miriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary have definitely fallen in recent years, but visits to their online dictionary have gone way up, and even on the print side, their dictionary remains one of

the top sellers, just behind the Bible. But to quote Peter Sokolowski, who's an editor for Miriam Webster, the dictionary in the most generic scope is being used more than ever. You can have it as an app, it's online while you're at work, you have it as a print book. Book sales are down, but we're seeing an overall increase in use. Yeah, I mean, I guess that's encouraging, But you know, you've got go to like Rog's and Miriam Webster and they may still have a place on the bookshelf.

But I feel like encyclopedias are a different story. I mean, even seemingly immortal Encyclopedia Britannica cease to produce print editions back in two thousand twelve, and they decided to go online exclusive instead, And really I'm not sure who was still buying at that point, given that the final edition costs you a cool fourteen hundred dollars, which just seems so crazy now, But as far as I can tell, the World Book Encyclopedia is the only encyclopedia left with

actual paper in the game. Yeah, and a lot of people see the demise of print encyclopedias is a good thing because, you know, while there's a certain nostalgia tied up in this idea of a door to door encyclopedia salesman or those commercials that offered beautiful, hardbound knowledge for a low monthly payment, the reality is that these twenty plus volumes weren't often worth the price, or at least

not for very long. Like the rapid advancements in science or politics, they all ensured that most encyclopedias were outdated by the time they were printed. Yeah, though they were such wondrous things to explore, like thumbing through the pages and that serendipity of learning about weird topics. I mean, you can definitely go down these Wikipedia rabbit holes, but

the experience it just feels kind of different, you know. Yeah, But the fact that you can have endless pages and that they can be updated immediately really is amazing about the net. Plus, Like, one of the arguments against print is that it looks so definitive or authoritative that it often encourages kids to, you know, be a little too

trusting about what they read. But would you really rather kids trust the community driven source like Wikipedia instead, Well, not definitively, but you know, questioning online sources and seeking out verification for what you read, Like that's really important and a really important habit for kids to pick up today, you know. Uh Slate had a comment about this, and and a writer wrote, if you want to learn to suss out the liars, there's no better training than Wikipedia.

I can't argue with that. I mean, I do want to mention one last thing that's unique to print encyclopedias, and this came from a really interesting essay by David A. Bell that appeared in The New Republic back when Encyclopedia Britannica first announced the demise if its print component. And this is kind of a long one, but bear with me on this. So he says, with the disappearance of paper encyclopedias, a part of the Western intellectual tradition is

disappearing as well. The great paper encyclopedias of the past had other grander ambitions. They aspired to provide an overview of all human knowledge, and still more boldly, to put that knowledge into a coherent logical order. Even if they mostly organized their articles alphabetically, they also sought to link

the material together thematically, all of it. In nineteen four, for instance, the editors of the Encyclopedia Britannica added to the work a one volume propedia which sought to provide a detailed outline of human knowledge while referencing the appropriate articles of the encyclopedia itself. Large headings such as life, society, and religion were subdivided into these forty odd divisions, and then further into hundreds of individual sections. That kind of

ambition mattered. It mattered that one could look at a stack of volumes and say, here are vast libraries distilled down into an essence of human knowledge and organized in a logical order. The books testified to the hope that ultimately human beings had at least a measure of control over the overpowering torrents and facts and ideas that they collectively produce. Wow, well, rest in peace, print encyclopedias. Why why don't we dedicate this backed off in their honor. Yeah,

In the very first encyclopedia Britannica. Homo sapiens were subdivided into five categories American, European, Asiatic, African, and monsters. So plenty of people are familiar with the Urban Dictionary. Wish defined slang for you, But where do you go when you need new slang for your slang? The Urban Thesaurus, of course. And while the site isn't exactly safe for work, here just a few of the terms Urban Thesaurus used as alternatives for love, lust, crush, boo I, law, you raw,

and Kurt Cobaine's killer. It's quite the list there, Mango. Well, I'm sure you know that J. R. Tolkien was obsessed with etymologies and language, but did you know that he actually worked as an assistant editor at the O. E. D. He worked on the Double US and wrote multiple drafts for the definitions of walnut, walrus, and waistcoat, among other things. Somehow, it didn't even occur to me that, like, you'd write lots of drafts for each entry. It's amazing. So here's

something I thought was clever. The senses to explain words and dictionaries are often meant to be simple and clear, but also kind of boring. But this artist Jazz Burrows has been stringing them together to make really weird short stories. He has a whole video series of dictionary stories. But my favorite is when he called the real dictionary phrases

for the twelve days of Christmas. It's like the seventh day Baptist, six months of unclouded memories, five venturous young men, four slices of bread, like these are all phrases in the Dictionary, and it's so dumb, But you know, he has a whole chorus singing, and it's pretty funny. All right. Well, I found a great list of words that were first introduced to the public by presidents on history dot com.

So it's things like first Lady, which Zachary Taylor actually introduced, and apparently before he referred to Dolly Madison as the first Lady, people just referred to them as the president interests. Also, to make English less English, Thomas Jefferson brought French words to the US, including the word pedicure. I mean, that can't be real, Like Thomas Jefferson introduced petticures to America to quote describe the care of feet, toes, and toenails. He did it. Okay, Well, I've got one for you

that I I know you can't feet. Do you know that encyclopedias used to give away tiny plots of land when you bought a set? You know, I'd heard about these sorts of marketing employees before. I think we even talked about in a similar scheme, and that the Yukon with cereal boxes. Yeah, that's right. But here's what's interesting. So between nineteen fourteen and nineteen nineteen, you can get a slice of Huntington's Beach in California with the purchase

of an encyclopedia. And supposedly the encyclopedia lots were just a hundred feet by twenty five ft and they were almost stacked up like a set of encyclopedias on a shelf. It was this like worthless gimmick that no one could really cash out on until nineteen twenty when oil was found under all that les, So suddenly anyone who invested in knowledge got rich. Uh. Well, you know it's nice to know that knowledge pays off. So I agree, I cannot beat that facts, So I'm gonna let you keep

the trophy this week, Mango, Thanks so much. So that's it for today's episode. If we forgot any great facts about reference books, and I'm sure that we did. We would love to hear from. You can email us part Time Genius at how stuff Works dot com. You can also call us on our seven fact hotline one eight four four pt Genius. We've loved hearing a lot of the great calls that have come in recently. You can also find us on Facebook or Twitter. Thanks so much

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