Most people use a dictionary with little thought given to the genesis of definitions, or their maintenance. Kory Stamper pulls back the curtain in Word by Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries, a paean to the craft of lexicography and a sometimes bemused exploration of the "Escher-esque logic of English."
Stamper started college in pre-med, came a cropper in organic chemistry, and moved on to medieval Icelandic sagas, which led to classes in Old English, where she fell for "this wild, vibrant whore of a language." That love affair has continued with her work for Merriam-Webster as a lexicographer and editor. Aside from the formal qualifications to be a lexicographer--have a degree in any field, be a native English speaker--she had to have Sprachgefühl, a feeling for language. She also had to be suited to sitting in near monastic silence while working, with only an occasional murmur when confronted with a misplaced dash.
Stamper neatly and wittily covers grammar, defining philosophy (recording language as people use it vs. guarding the purity of the language); "wrong" words, like irregardless and unravel; dialects (where marginalization of same can have dire results, as in the Trayvon Martin trial); the history of dictionaries; adding new words (with the standard resultant carping about the decline of civilization); revising (constant); etymology (many origin stories, like those for "posh," are false); dating ("OMG" can be traced back to 1917); pronunciation; and the sociolinguistic implications of "nude" (whose skin?).
She obviously loves working with words, in spite of her frustration when wrestling with three weeks of compiling citations for the verb "take." "Lexicography moves so slowly that scientists classify it as a solid." But it's not a job, it's a calling, which is a plus if a lot is at stake: when defining slurs, for instance--painful lexical interactions can be fraught with disagreement. And the landscape of lexicography has been "overwhelmingly beige" (i.e., the "province of well-off, educated, old white dudes"). As much as lexicographers are trained to be objective, it's difficult to stand outside the personal, as Stamper thinks about being catcalled a bitch, and "the fist that clenches in my chest as the car rounds the corner, trailing male laughter and a whiff of gasoline."
Kory Stamper has written a smart, sparkling and often hilarious valentine to the content and keepers of dictionaries. Whether describing the editorial table at Merriam-Webster (room for four editors to sit comfortably, or six "in introverted terror") or the reverence lexicographers have for "this gorgeous, lascivious" language, she shares her admiration and appreciation for the invisible craftspeople who not only define the recently added "face-palm," but also revise the verb "ghost" to match the current dating scene. In doing so, she deftly explains why "a living language made by fallible people will not be perfect, but it will be remarkable." --Marilyn Dahl, editor emerita, Shelf Awareness for Readers
Shelf Talker: Merriam-Webster editor Kory Stamper writes a superbly entertaining account of dictionaries' inner workings and creation.