Word by Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries

by Kory Stamper

“We think of English as a fortress to be defended, but a better analogy is to think of English as a child. We love and nurture it into being, and once it gains gross motor skills, it starts going exactly where we don’t want it to go: it heads right for the goddamned electrical sockets.”
 
With wit and irreverence, lexicographer Kory Stamper cracks open the obsessive world of dictionary writing, from the agonizing decisions about what to define and how to do it to the knotty questions of ever-changing word usage.
 
Filled with fun facts—for example, the first documented usage of “OMG” was in a letter to Winston Churchill—and Stamper’s own stories from the linguistic front lines (including how she became America’s foremost “irregardless” apologist, despite loathing the word), Word by Word is an endlessly entertaining look at the wonderful complexities and eccentricities of the English language.

• ISBN10: 110197026X
• ISBN13: 9781101970263
• Publish Date: 6 March 2018 (first published 14 March 2017)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Vintage
• Format: Paperback (US Trade)
• Pages: 320
• Language: English
• URL: https://penguinrandomhouse.com/books/isbn/9781101970263

Reviews

[mercurial]

4.5/5
Learned a lot about lexicography, the inner workings of dictionary publishing, how culture shapes language, and many new words

[jamiereadthis]

I love words, I love English, and there is no way I could be a lexicographer. I will never read a dictionary the same way again. This was even more interesting than I hoped it would be.

I call it “craft” and not “art” for connotative reasons. “Art” conjures an image of the lexicographer as medium or conduit— a live wire that merely transmits something unkenned, alien. But “craft” implies care, repetitive work, apprenticeship, and practice. It is something within most people’s reach, but few people devote themselves to it long enough and with enough intensity to do it well. That sort of dedication to words comes across as batty, so we speak in metaphor. Defining is the mental equivalent of free throws in basketball: anyone can stand at the free-throw line and sink one occasionally; everyone gets lucky. But the pro is the person who stands at the free-throw line for hours, months, years, perfecting that one motion until it is as fail-safe as humanly possible, until it looks so much like second nature that an uncoordinated clod like me can watch them lob a rare miss at the net during a game and say, “Are you kidding? How easy is it to shoot a free throw?”