The Swedish Academy is kept pretty busy at managing its annual Nobel Prize roster, but the group is also tasked with completing the Swedish Academy Dictionary (SAOB), a 39-volume, 33,000-page resource that the Guardian calls "the Swedish equivalent of the Oxford English Dictionary." But while the Nobels come out every year, the dictionary has been a drawn-out work in progress—for 140 years. Now, the protracted work started on the SAOB is finally (kind of) complete, with the dictionary's final volume sent to the printer last week, according to the tome's editor.
"It was started in 1883 and now we're done," Christian Mattsson told the AFP on Wednesday, adding that it took 137 full-time workers to wrap things up. And we note above that the dictionary is "kind of" done, because a good number of the volumes (A-R) were completed decades ago and need updates so that more modern words in the vernacular, including "Barbie" and "computer," can be added. "One such word is 'allergy,' which came into the Swedish language around the 1920s but is not in the 'A' volume because it was published in 1893," Mattsson says. The dictionary tracks the Swedish language going back to 1521. (More dictionary stories.)
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