Tag: dictionary
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Word compendiums for the win
It’s hard to even imagine now, but aimlessly browsing bookstores was something I did semi-regularly back in my single and then pre-kid days. One kind of book I’d always keep an eye out for was (for lack of a better name) word compendiums, an author’s curated collection of rare, idiosyncratic, or just plain cool words.…
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OED can you see?
A used books and records store in my town just moved even closer to my place. Today I stopped by and saw a two-volume Oxford English Dictionary Compact Edition. It comes in a case and with its own magnifying glass, because they weren’t kidding when they called it compact: I exercised enough self-control to pass…
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Dictionary on display
This morning I looked at my bookshelves and noticed my three volumes of Webster’s Third New International Dictionary. I haven’t cracked them open since I got them from Half Price Books a few months ago. I was so excited to get them so I’d have an accessible and thorough way to tap into the dictionary’s…
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Word by Word
“The process of creating a dictionary is magical, frustrating, brain wrenching, mundane, transcendent. It is ultimately a show of love for a language that has been called unlovely and unlovable.” Unlovable? Bah! English may be a strange, amorphous beast, but its quirkiness is its charm. In Word by Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries, Kory…
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Irregardless Is A Word, But A Bad One
Ta-Nehisi Coates went all TNC the other night on Twitter (which is just plain fun to watch) to address the evergreen “___ isn’t a word” debate, a favorite parlor game of pedantic English majors everywhere. Addressing whether irregardless should be sanctioned as a real word when regardless was already acceptable, he ventured: “Worst argument is…