The OED, the Professor & the Madman

[alice malice]

On this date in 1928, the final volume of the first edition of the
Oxford English Dictionary was published. The original estimate was
that the complete four-volume set would take ten years; when it took
five years to get to "ant," the editors knew they had underestimated
spectacularly. They did not know that they were being significantly
helped by a contributor from the insane asylum.

http://www.todayinliterature.com/index.asp
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