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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"--… (més)
a fun introduction to the day to day life and pursuits of the average lexicographer. If nothing else, I now know that pumpernickel means fart goblin ( )
A wonderful look into the world of lexicography, or crafting and compiling the words and definitions that comprise a dictionary (and other relevant features such as first usage origin, pronunciations, etc.) Stamper describes her job as constant reading, searching for possible new senses or examples of existing ones as citations, and that sounds like a dream job (teasing out the finer points of the verb forms of take: less so).
I've been prescriptivist in the past, but I'm coming round to the descriptive position- that dictionaries, etc. are here to log usage of a living language, not necessarily what the "right" version is (which is why irregardless, ain't, and other words have a place in the dictionary- because people use them). ( )
Delightful. For anyone who's attempted to read a dictionary (why? mind your business), or just has a fascination with language, this will be a hit. How are words chosen for a dictionary? How are definitions developed? Who decides what the definitions of words are? Does changing a definition in the dictionary change the word's meaning in real life (no, duh)? This is funny, self-deprecating, and always illuminating. If you don't follow Merriam-Webster on Instagram, you should. ( )
Loved this book. In the age of Google, we take our good old dictionary for granted. And Lexicographer's job is a thankless one. We all assume language is static. But we miss a point, if language is static then what calls for a newer editions/revision of a dictionary? This book answers the point with some interesting examples. If one assumes that job of Lexicographer's job is a glamourous one and they go about their work in idyllic setup and with dreamy eyes... We can't be more wrong. Best book I read this year. I have read the Kindle edition but have ordered the paperback. This will stay on my reading shelf as an ode to the dictionary and as a tribute to lexicographers. ( )
Oh, this was lovely. I kind of always want to know exactly what it is that other people do all day, so finding out in detail not just how modern dictionaries work, but also the politics and intricacies of being a lexicographer (and how Kory Stamper feels when she checks her e-mails) was deeply satisfying. Stamper does a great job of making every detail of the dictionary-writing process accessible. Each chapter focuses on a principle highlighted by a specific word and start very basic (like how hard it is to categorize parts of speech) and venture into the quite abstract (the way that implicit biases affect definitions and how the definitions used can be perceived by readers.)
The strongest thread throughout the book is basically an ode to descriptivist linguistics as well as a dismissal of the prescriptivist (and, to be frank, neurotic) approach that Stamper perceives in amateur logophiles.
Overall, the book is personal, funny and educational - a rare combination. If I had one complaint, it would be that the self-deprecation wears very thin, but that's easy to overlook with so much more to like. ( )
Hungry word lovers will find this book a delicious, multicourse meal of word lore, the personal story of the author’s life and career, and detailed backstory of the harrowing process by which dictionaries are produced.
afegit per Katya0133 | editaLibrary Journal, Paul A. D’Alessandro(Mar 1, 2017)
Stamper . . . has drawn up a witty, sly, occasionally profane behind-the-scenes tour aimed at deposing the notion of "real and proper English" and replacing it with a genuine appreciation for the glories and frustrations of finding just the right word.
afegit per Katya0133 | editaPublishers Weekly(Dec 5, 2016)
Word by Word offers marvelous insight into the messy world behind the tidy definitions on the page.
afegit per Katya0133 | editaBooklist, Bridget Thoreson(Dec 1, 2016)
Informació del coneixement compartit en anglès.Modifica-la per localitzar-la a la teva llengua.
It may be observed that the English language is not a system of logic, that its vocabulary has not developed in correlation with generations of straight thinkers, that we cannot impose upon it something preconceived as an ideal of scientific method and expect to come out with anything more systematic and more clarifying than what we start with: what we start with is an inchoate heterogenenous conglomerate that retains the indestructible bones of innumerable tries at orderly communication, and our definitions as a body are bound to reflect this situation. — Philip Babcock Gove, Merriam-Webster in house "Defining Techniques" memo, May 22, 1958
Dedicatòria
Informació del coneixement compartit en anglès.Modifica-la per localitzar-la a la teva llengua.
For my parents, Allen and Diane, who bought me books and loved me well.
Primeres paraules
Informació del coneixement compartit en anglès.Modifica-la per localitzar-la a la teva llengua.
Language is one of the few common experiences humanity has.
Citacions
Informació del coneixement compartit en anglès.Modifica-la per localitzar-la a la teva llengua.
If we hold to the schedule, the new Unabridged should be finished a few weeks before Christ returns in majesty to judge the quick and the dead.
Lexicography moves so slowly that scientists classify it as a solid.
Most people think of the parts of speech as discrete categories, drawers with their own identifying labels, and when you peek inside, there's the English language, neatly folded like a retiree's socks: Person, Place, Thing (Noun); Describes Action (Verb); Modifies Nouns (Adjectives); Answers the W Questions (Adverb); Joins Words Together (Conjuction); Things We Say When We Are Happy, Surprised, or Pissed Off (Interjection).
Your job as a lexicographer, and part of the reason why Gil is looking doubtfully in your general direction this afternoon, is to learn how to carefully parse English as it is used, sentence by sentence, and correctly classify the words within that sentence by their function. You don't decide what part of speech a word is—the general speaking, writing public does. You merely discern what its part of speech is and then accurately report it in the dictionary entry.
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. We dress it in fancy clothes and tell it to behave, and it comes home with its underwear on its head and wearing someone else's socks. As English grows, it lives its own life, and this is right and healthy. Sometimes English does exactly what we think it should; sometimes it goes places we don't like and thrives there in spite of all our worrying. We can tell it to clean itself up and act more like Latin; we can throw tantrums and start learning French instead. But we will never really be the boss of it. And that's why it flourishes.
Of course "irregardless" is a made-up word that was entered into the dictionary through constant use; that's pretty much how this racket works. All words are made-up: Do you think we find them fully formed on the ocean floor, or mine for them in some remote part of Wales? I began telling correspondents that "irregardless" was much more complex than people thought, and it deserved a little respectful respite, even if it still was not part of Standard English. My mother was duly horrified. "Oh, Kory," she tutted. "So much for that college education."
A week of editorial time stuffed down a rabbit hole, and all I came out of it with was the knowledge that I am the world's biggest epistemophilic dork.
Even when you do your damnedest to shut it off, you can't stop reading and marking. You can still enjoy reading, of course, but you will always have a mental hangnail that catches on certain words and hurts until you attend to it.
A job where you read all day can be a pleasure, to be sure, but it can also ruin you. Words cease to be casual, tossed off, and able to be left alone. You are that toddler on a walk, the one who wants to pick up every bit of detritus and gunk and dead insect and dog crap on the sidewalk, asking, "What's that, what's that, what's that?" while a parent with better things to do tries to haul your over-inquisitive butt away.
Real defining is the stuff of philosophy and theology: it is the attempt to describe the essential nature of something. Real defining answers questions like "What is truth?" "What is love?" "Do sounds exist if no one is around to hear them?" and "Is a hot dog a sandwich?"
At our next meeting, I protested—you're not supposed to use the word you're defining in the definition! It's a truth universally acknowledged (and enforced) by American language arts teachers everywhere!
I was trained with two other editors, and it was common for Gil to have us read our definitions aloud so that we could benefit from hearing how dumb we all were.
Analytical definitions are the most common ones you'll find in dictionaries, the ones that read like they were written by a team of neurodiverse robots—the ones that take years of practice to write.
When a lexicographer says "unless..." in the middle of defining, you should turn out the lights and go home, first making sure you've left them a supply of water and enough nonperishable food to last several days.
I squeezed my eyes shut and silently asked the cosmos to send the office up in a fireball right now.
My working definition of "desk" expanded as I ran out of flat spaces to stack citations. Piles appeared on the top of my monitor, in my pencil drawer, filed between rows on my keyboard, teetering on the top of the cubicle wall, shuffled onto the top of the CPU under my desk. Still I didn't have enough space: I began to carefully, carefully put piles of citations on the floor. My cubicle looked as if it had hosted the world's neatest ticker-tape parade.
I took out my customized date stamp and began marking the covered cits, pile by pile, as used. After the first handful, I stamped a little more exuberantly, and my cube mate hemmed in irritation. No matter. I had no punching bag to pummel; I had no nuclear device to detonate. But I had a date stamp, and by the power vested in me by Samuel Johnson and Noah Webster, I was going to put this goddamned verb to bed.
"Damn," "hell," and "ass" (referring to the donkey) aren't considered profanity by Worcester. They're in the Bible and so perfectly holy words. The "stupid person" sense of "ass" isn't in the Bible, but it is in Shakespeare, which is a close second.
It's an occupational hazard that work follows the lexicographer home. You spend all day elbows-deep in the language, so it's inevitable that you can't scrub it all off when you leave the building.
One part of many identity movements is linguistic reclamation. This is a process by which a maligned group—women, gay men, people of color, the disabled, and so on—take an inflammatory slur that's been directed at them as a group and begin using it themselves as an identity marker of pride. It's done to remove power from the oppressor, the linguistic version of catching an arrow shot at you in flight.
And at the heart, a personal conundrum: How does a lexicographer, who sits within a particular cultural moment, with their own thoughts, feelings, experiences, prejudices (known and unknown), and assumptions—who is tasked with describing, to the best of their ability, the main denotative and connotative meanings of a word—adequately capture and communicate this murky, hot mess?
To the etymologist, "origin unknown" means that while there may be theories regarding a word's origins, there's no direct evidence that those theories are true. But to most people, "origin unknown" seems to mean "Please send us your best guess as to where this word came from, because we are idiots."
I maintained an outward detached, scholarly air as I listened, but inside I had slapped a figurative hand to my forehead, a la Homer Simpson.
Chasing dates is a journey through history; sometimes you get to your destination quickly, and other times you get a long scenic drive past Winston Churchill's private correspondence.
Anyone who visits the office can feel the busy quiet settle on them like a blanket.
Today, however, I had ignored the nice weather and instead put my head on my desk, forehead pressed to the Formica and arms covering my skull. I had joked with one of my yoga-loving co-workers that I was developing a series of poses we could do at our desks—a head-in-hands slump over galleys called Drudge's Hunch, the arms-over-head seated stretch called Fluorescent Salutation, the hand-out position used to catch the fire door so it didn't slam and bother everyone was Worrier's Pose. My current pose was called Nuclear Fallout.
Jerkery, like stupidity and death, is an ontological constant in our universe.
Darreres paraules
Informació del coneixement compartit en anglès.Modifica-la per localitzar-la a la teva llengua.
English bounds onward, and we drudges will continue our chase after it, a little ragged for the rough terrain, perhaps, but ever tracking, eyes wide with quiet and reverence.
"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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