Word by Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries

Word by Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries is by lexicographer Kory Stamper. (If you saw the awesome Netflix series “History of Swear Words” then you saw her speak.) Stamper worked for almost 20 years at Merriam Webster, and in this book she explains how they define words, how they choose which words to include in the first place, how it can take literally NINE MONTHS just to fully distill the essence of one word down into what we get in the dictionary.

A book about dictionaries sounds really boring, doesn't it? I promise you it isn't! Anyone reading this review probably loves books, and probably loves words. But trust me, I had NO IDEA how much went into just defining words. In hindsight it makes sense but holy cow... and Stamper doesn't just provide these explanations, she does it with humor that will make you laugh and groan as she tells you about the time a cleaning crew accidentally undid weeks of work in one night.

She also delves into the misconception that the people at Merriam Webster are the ones who decide what is a word, as though they are the arbiters of language rather than the scribes. You wouldn't think the dictionary would provide drama, but then you read about the hate mail they received when the word marriage was updated to include same-sex marriages.

This book is really funny, informative, and one of my favorite non-fiction books. Five stars from me, and I strongly recommend it for anyone who loves words!

★ ★ ★ 1/2 (rounded up)
This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Readeras part of a quick takes/catch up post —emphasizing pithiness, not thoroughness.
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If you've ever wondered how a dictionary—at least Merriam-Webster dictionaries—is produced, this is the book for you. If you hadn't but the idea sounds pretty good now that you know a book like that exists (like I was), good news. Kory Stamper's book will satisfy.

As the blurb says,

She explains why 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. And along the way, she reveals little-known surprises—for example, the fact that “OMG” was first used in a letter to Winston Churchill in 1917.

Nine Nasty Words

Smug, I'm-smarter-than-you-although-I'm-pretending-not-to-be. Completely unnecessary use of profanity, although the author would say these are perfectly good words. See the first sentence.

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.

I zoomed through this book. I love Kory Stamper's writing style, and I like how she tackles the difference between how laypeople perceive the dictionary and how those to actually put the dictionary together do, that is, with a lot of snark.

“To the etymologist, ‘origin unknown' means that while there may be theories regarding a word's origin, 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 can forgive her snark because there's something about laypeople commenting on one's field of expertise that can be so hilarious and yet, depending on how often people feel the need to comment on it, so entirely irritating. Like, when I tell people I'm a librarian, a lot of people say, “Wow, you must love reading!” Which has yet to become too irritating for me, and I guess I'm more inclined to be chill about it because every time I meet someone who tells me they're an archaeologist I say “Cool, I love Indiana Jones”, even though I can see how instantly their face falls with the weariness of explaining how Indiana Jones was a shit archaeologist and those movies are nothing like the reality etc.
So I also loved reading about how the dictionary is perceived by dictionary editors, especially in terms of “antedaters”, people who write into the dictionary to give an example of a citation where the word was used earlier than the date the dictionary indicates. In some cases these are actually helpful and correct, and the dictionary is updated (eventually) accordingly, but in a lot of cases these are from people who are trying to “one-up” the dictionary and haven't actually thought about the sense in which a word is being used. For example, the word actress (a woman who is an actor - dated to 1680) has a more archaic sense of “a woman that takes part in any affair” - if you found a citation of the word dated between 1586 and 1680, you couldn't use it to prove the dictionary wrong since the word wasn't used in the sense we're looking at in that time.
Basically I just loved reading about how many people write into the dictionary for so many different reasons. People are great/the worst.

I also really liked Stamper's way of describing the slog of defining a word like take. It reminded me of the time I was trying to track down primary sources and I'd spend hours on a computer and then hours in library basements, only to finally find the journal issue I was looking for (and have the cover fall apart in my hand because it's so old) and flip to the article I was looking for a find that THAT ONE PAGE I NEEDED had been torn out who knows how long ago. But then, also the relief and joy of finishing a task that had taken so much of your time and sanity. Stamper really got that down. It makes me want to do something that seems futile.

I thought this would be a fun book about interesting words, but it was very different from what I expected and even more satisfying. I had never thought about everything that goes into a dictionary definition - the pronunciation, the different meanings of each word and how they are ordered, the example sentences - or even how a definition itself is written. Stamper provides all of this information in droll but informative fashion, with surprising language and history lessons. I wish she had provided more than little bit of information about herself, but Word by Word is not a memoir. For anyone who used to read a dictionary for fun, this is required reading. For those who love words, this is highly recommended.