Word by Word
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"Brimming with intelligence and personality, a vastly entertaining account of how dictionaries are made - a must read for word mavens. Have you ever tried to define the word "is?" Do you have strong feelings about the word (and, yes, it is a word) "irregardless?" Did you know that OMG was first used in 1917, in a letter to Winston Churchill? These are the questions that keep lexicographers up at night. While most of us might take dictionaries for granted, the process of writing dictionaries is in fact as lively and dynamic as language itself. With sharp wit and irreverence, Kory Stamper cracks open the complex, obsessive world of lexicography, from the agonizing decisions about what and how to define, to the knotty questions of usage in an ever-changing language. She explains why the small words are the most difficult to define, how it can take nine months to define a single word, and how our biases about language and pronunciation can have tremendous social influence. Throughout Stamper brings to life the hallowed halls (and highly idiosyncratic cubicles) of Merriam-Webster, a surprisingly rich world inhabited by quirky and erudite individuals who quietly shape the way we communicate. A sure delight for all lovers of words, Harmless Drudges will also improve readers' grasp and use of the English language"--
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This book is probably not a book for everybody. If you are the type of person who goes for action movies, for example, or loves to watch a good, hard game of football, well, you might just pass this book up.
But if you have always secretly thought that it was be a fine, fine job to carefully investigate and define words, to search out just the right way to explain wards, to figure out how to pronounce words...if you are a person who loves to think about all the nuances associated with words...if you like to explore where words came from....yep, this just might be a book you'd enjoy.
That's what Kory does for a living. She writes the dictionary. And in this book, she shares her work with us readers. No, it's not an action movie, and, no, it's not a game of football, but somehow Kory makes me know that her job is...well, fun.
"...the definition is an imperfect thing any way you look at it. A definition is an attempt to explain a word's meaning using these certain conventions, and you have to distinguish between the definition of a word and the meaning of a word. The meaning is something that resides in the word, and the definition is a description of that. But a definition is an artificial thing."
If you are in anyway interested in language, etymology, and the quirks of English, then read this book, as it's a whole lot of fun. Stamper is one of the hidden lexicographers that writes the dictionary. In this memoir, she covers, in some detail, how much work and decision making goes on behind the scenes, plus debunks many of the incorrect assumptions many people have about what the dictionary is actually for. Even when she covers fairly technical subject matter, her tone remains informal and lighthearted (with plenty of pun-based jokes), so it never gets overwhelming. Recommended.
