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The Future Dictionary of America
This book was conceived by Jonathan Safran Foer, Dave Eggers, Nicole Krauss, and the staff of McSweeney's as a way to bring over a hundred authors together to promote progressive causes in the November 2004 election. An imagining of what a dictionary might look like about thirty years hence, when the world's problems are solved and our current president is a distant memory, the book is by turns funny, outraged, utopian, and dyspeptic. 100 percent of the proceeds will go to a mix of political organizations to support progressive candidates in the upcoming elections.
Over 150 writers contributed to the book, Stephen King, Robert Olen Butler, Glen David Gold, Richard Powers, Susan Straight, Sarah Vowell, Billy Collins, C.K. Williams, Colson Whitehead, Donald Antrim, Jonathan Franzen, Edwidge Danticat, Edward Hirsch, Joyce Carol Oates, Katha Pollitt, Padgett Powell, Paul Auster, Anthony Swofford, Julia Alvarez, Susan Choi, Jim Shepard, Aimee Bender, and Art Spiegelman.
Released in partnership with Barsuk Records, the book will include a CD compilation, with exclusive songs by the best musicians working. Among David Byrne, R.E.M., Death Cab for Cutie, Sleater-Kinney, Flaming Lips, Tom Waits, Bright Eyes, They Might Be Giants, Nada Surf, and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.
Over 150 writers contributed to the book, Stephen King, Robert Olen Butler, Glen David Gold, Richard Powers, Susan Straight, Sarah Vowell, Billy Collins, C.K. Williams, Colson Whitehead, Donald Antrim, Jonathan Franzen, Edwidge Danticat, Edward Hirsch, Joyce Carol Oates, Katha Pollitt, Padgett Powell, Paul Auster, Anthony Swofford, Julia Alvarez, Susan Choi, Jim Shepard, Aimee Bender, and Art Spiegelman.
Released in partnership with Barsuk Records, the book will include a CD compilation, with exclusive songs by the best musicians working. Among David Byrne, R.E.M., Death Cab for Cutie, Sleater-Kinney, Flaming Lips, Tom Waits, Bright Eyes, They Might Be Giants, Nada Surf, and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.
250 pages, Hardcover
First published August 1, 2004
7 people are currently reading
1309 people want to read
About the author
Jonathan Safran Foer
78 books14.4k followersJonathan Safran Foer is the author of two bestselling, award-winning novels, Everything Is Illuminated and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, and a bestselling work of nonfiction, Eating Animals. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.
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Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews
August 14, 2022
When I set eyes on this understatedly attractive reference book I assumed it was a satirical response to the very very traumatising Trump period.
In fact it’s McSweeneys’ effort to aid the leftie (over-educated, under-powered) campaign for enlightenment in the 2004 Presidential election, which leads me to wonder what was the need, compared with what was to happen later. The conservative incumbent won that election anyway, so the effort went for nought.
Still, many of the 200 contributors have some fun along the way. Marilynne Robinson, usually not screamingly funny, opens with the future word Adulteration, which has the advantage of already being a word, but in a new guise, now meaning a movement to discover the inner adult, as a response to the overwhelming popularity of discovering the inner child, which only found ‘said child was a peevish, self-indulgent brat, hostile to the constraints of civilisation and bored to the point of rage by meaning and complexity.’
Shoshana Berger contributes suturitis ‘any of several physical disfigurements through excessive plastic surgery.’ I like celebrititus (Siri Hustvelt) which is ‘an inflammation of the gray matter caused by over exposure to celebrity magazines, television shows, celebrity websites, and blockbuster Hollywood movies.’ Positive therapeutic results were achieved when heavy doses of poetry and philosophy were prescribed by neurologist Dorothea Brooke (over-educated).
Many definitions are heavy–handed and possibly not funny, but I am Australian and therefore not completely understanding of American humor (sic) eg wankerzone ‘a place where hardcore liberals and conservatives go to hit each other with pillows’ (Arthur Bradford). Mmmm, Okay.
I was naturally curious about the strikingly-named Laird Hunt, who confined his contributions to the letter ‘Z’, and indeed noted ‘Z’ is now (in the future year 2025) the first letter of the new alphabet because ‘it points both forward and backward simultaneously. This reminds us of the woes of the past and the bright possibilities of the future.’ Laird Hunt also gives us zogbite, ‘instances of content–free poll–inspired ostensibly focussed political sloganeering.’ I recognise the concept.
But at the end of the day, a dictionary is a prisoner of its time, at best an accurate and useful record of language then in use. Accordingly, they date. The Future Dictionary of America may reflect a left-leaning sensibility shared by many, who were hopeful of exerting an influence on the political process, but now it looks like a quaint window into a time now well past.
The rating: I thought two, but this highly to be desired future development raised it to three:
In fact it’s McSweeneys’ effort to aid the leftie (over-educated, under-powered) campaign for enlightenment in the 2004 Presidential election, which leads me to wonder what was the need, compared with what was to happen later. The conservative incumbent won that election anyway, so the effort went for nought.
Still, many of the 200 contributors have some fun along the way. Marilynne Robinson, usually not screamingly funny, opens with the future word Adulteration, which has the advantage of already being a word, but in a new guise, now meaning a movement to discover the inner adult, as a response to the overwhelming popularity of discovering the inner child, which only found ‘said child was a peevish, self-indulgent brat, hostile to the constraints of civilisation and bored to the point of rage by meaning and complexity.’
Shoshana Berger contributes suturitis ‘any of several physical disfigurements through excessive plastic surgery.’ I like celebrititus (Siri Hustvelt) which is ‘an inflammation of the gray matter caused by over exposure to celebrity magazines, television shows, celebrity websites, and blockbuster Hollywood movies.’ Positive therapeutic results were achieved when heavy doses of poetry and philosophy were prescribed by neurologist Dorothea Brooke (over-educated).
Many definitions are heavy–handed and possibly not funny, but I am Australian and therefore not completely understanding of American humor (sic) eg wankerzone ‘a place where hardcore liberals and conservatives go to hit each other with pillows’ (Arthur Bradford). Mmmm, Okay.
I was naturally curious about the strikingly-named Laird Hunt, who confined his contributions to the letter ‘Z’, and indeed noted ‘Z’ is now (in the future year 2025) the first letter of the new alphabet because ‘it points both forward and backward simultaneously. This reminds us of the woes of the past and the bright possibilities of the future.’ Laird Hunt also gives us zogbite, ‘instances of content–free poll–inspired ostensibly focussed political sloganeering.’ I recognise the concept.
But at the end of the day, a dictionary is a prisoner of its time, at best an accurate and useful record of language then in use. Accordingly, they date. The Future Dictionary of America may reflect a left-leaning sensibility shared by many, who were hopeful of exerting an influence on the political process, but now it looks like a quaint window into a time now well past.
The rating: I thought two, but this highly to be desired future development raised it to three:
silence parlor ‘a heavily soundproofed café, often equipped with noise-cancellation technology, in which consenting citizens may gather to talk, read, or sit quietly.' Jonathan Franzen.Oh, were it only possible…
May 1, 2008
Maybe I'm just one of those psuedo-intellectual, pretentious, red diaper baby, "what white people like" poster-children who drank a bit too much coffee before thumbing through this book, but I rather enjoyed it. For the past month that I've had it, I've randomly picked several terms a day to read and laugh at. A little more than mildly offensive, it has a safe spot on any hipster who is trying too hard's bookshelf.
August 2, 2023
I read this McSweeny’s publication featuring the work of hundreds of big names in US literature during the late summer of 2020 after it was on my to-read list for years, thinking that it would be an interesting companion to the 2020 election. Published to “benefit progressive causes” around the 2004 presidential election it was both unsettling and fascinating to look at the satirical entries included here from a point where some form of the fears they imagined for us happened.
A harrowing collection to read in the face of the looming election of that year knowing the results of 2004, The Future Dictionary of America felt like a time capsule of US “liberal” culture during that particular time and place. As such luminaries as Jonathan Franzen and Joyce Carol Oates attempted to “voice their displeasure with their current political leadership, and to collectively imagine a brighter future,” it was fascinating to see where they seemed any way prophetic, and where they were unable to anticipate the coming darkness. Framed as a dictionary for people of the far utopian future to understand the cultural origins of various terms from the dark ages of the early 21st century, including such dated items as “Ashcroftian,” “Bliar,” (a reference to Tony Blair) or more like “faction,” the work as a whole has the tongue in cheek, dry arch humor that McSweeny’s specializes in.
The political concerns cited by editors of The Future Dictionary as the target of their satire, “the Bush administration’s assault of free speech, overtime, drinking water, truth, the rule of law, humility, the separation of Church and State, a woman’s right to choose, clean air, and every other good idea this country has ever had,” also make it a useful comparison. It's a good reminder that things have been tense politically in the US for a while. While GWB might have had the more affable, avuncular evil of “compassionate conservatism” in place of Trump’s open hostility and indifference to standards, they each represented the forces of authoritarianism.
I discuss other works ofpost-apocalyptic literature focusing on our current US political climate at Harris' Tome Corner.
A harrowing collection to read in the face of the looming election of that year knowing the results of 2004, The Future Dictionary of America felt like a time capsule of US “liberal” culture during that particular time and place. As such luminaries as Jonathan Franzen and Joyce Carol Oates attempted to “voice their displeasure with their current political leadership, and to collectively imagine a brighter future,” it was fascinating to see where they seemed any way prophetic, and where they were unable to anticipate the coming darkness. Framed as a dictionary for people of the far utopian future to understand the cultural origins of various terms from the dark ages of the early 21st century, including such dated items as “Ashcroftian,” “Bliar,” (a reference to Tony Blair) or more like “faction,” the work as a whole has the tongue in cheek, dry arch humor that McSweeny’s specializes in.
The political concerns cited by editors of The Future Dictionary as the target of their satire, “the Bush administration’s assault of free speech, overtime, drinking water, truth, the rule of law, humility, the separation of Church and State, a woman’s right to choose, clean air, and every other good idea this country has ever had,” also make it a useful comparison. It's a good reminder that things have been tense politically in the US for a while. While GWB might have had the more affable, avuncular evil of “compassionate conservatism” in place of Trump’s open hostility and indifference to standards, they each represented the forces of authoritarianism.
I discuss other works ofpost-apocalyptic literature focusing on our current US political climate at Harris' Tome Corner.
June 4, 2009
This was everything I hate about McSweeney's in concentrated form. I like when McSweeney's-type people write about the human condition, but I have discovered that I hate it when they get political.
Firstly, it read more like a rambling encyclopedia than a dictionary. That's sort of irritating, but not such a big deal. Secondly, almost the entire book was political things - which I expected from the description of it. What I didn't expect was how stupid and preachy it would all be. There were some interesting threads - like Shelley Jackson's stuff about the Interstitial States of America - but most of it was just the kind of uber-liberal self-congratulatory crap that makes me ashamed to call myself a liberal.
For instance, one fool in his definition of a word explained how the word came about after all war stopped due to increased funding for the arts. Like increased funding for the arts will cause there to be enough potable water for everyone in Sudan. Idiot. A majority of the definitions were not that bad but still not good unless you like ignorant preachy liberalism. And they weren't nearly good enough to take away the taint of the horrible ones.
Firstly, it read more like a rambling encyclopedia than a dictionary. That's sort of irritating, but not such a big deal. Secondly, almost the entire book was political things - which I expected from the description of it. What I didn't expect was how stupid and preachy it would all be. There were some interesting threads - like Shelley Jackson's stuff about the Interstitial States of America - but most of it was just the kind of uber-liberal self-congratulatory crap that makes me ashamed to call myself a liberal.
For instance, one fool in his definition of a word explained how the word came about after all war stopped due to increased funding for the arts. Like increased funding for the arts will cause there to be enough potable water for everyone in Sudan. Idiot. A majority of the definitions were not that bad but still not good unless you like ignorant preachy liberalism. And they weren't nearly good enough to take away the taint of the horrible ones.
May 8, 2008
So good. Many of the terms can be incorporated into everyday life. Keep this on hand next to your Merriam-Webster and you'll be set.
October 27, 2025
Because I'm both a dictionary nerd and a future-imagining nerd, I read this book from start to finish as a primary source to get a full sense of how they treated both. The politics expressed are not important and I would review it the same way. Sometimes what would be helpful observations elsewhere highly varies by author here, so I'll skip that.
Credit: After the copies of the Declaration of Independence, Universal Bill of Human rights, the Taguba report, and an uncharacteristically insipid essay by Vonnegut, etc., every author's name is attached to the entry they wrote. At the end of the dictionary there's an index linking each author to all their entries and then a short blurb for each of them and the artists. This is very much a collection of author ads.
Dictionary-ness: This is not very dictionary-y. It's more of an encyclopedia. The authors collected here are storytellers, not editors or definers, and the number of entries in this book that are in dictionary form is vastly overshadowed by sprawling, sequential series of text. Sometimes this is intentionally done as a subversive joke, but with the non-coordination of a three-month schedule, too many people made that joke for it to land. Sometimes authors did not care to split their ideas into many different terms, just glomming them into one big line. This is better fit for an encyclopedia. However, those who broke separate ideas into entries really shined. These entries functioned as a series of callbacks that build how such an idea really works. I do believe they intentionally relied on the order of the alphabet in order to pace exposition to what would be confusing to piece together, so it's not like that doesn't have its tricks as well.
I didn't discredit the long-form, though. There was really rich dirt for further digging, like turning the future into an optimistic fairy tale, turning Ancient Egyptian setting into political events that involve voting out the Pharaoh. There was even niche and offensive fetish porn with no observable other purpose. That soil was not very rich.
Idea repetition: far too much. Since these authors seemed to work in isolation from each other, I think this book would have benefited immensely from more base guidelines and a metadata creator/manager. Basic guidelines would be the date this dictionary "was" "published," and stuff like that. Contributors set things all over the coming millennium, up to 3002. The United States kept the same borders. Contributors beat W. Bush, the Iraq war, and other current events into the ground. Similar ideas—namely, the creation of a second USA in a pocket dimension—got recreated several times because there was no communication. If people could scroll the metadata and add to each other, this would be a much more interesting book.
Drawings: What's usually visual example in dictionaries is in here re-imagining of specific entries as political cartoons.
I'll end the overview here, I guess.
Credit: After the copies of the Declaration of Independence, Universal Bill of Human rights, the Taguba report, and an uncharacteristically insipid essay by Vonnegut, etc., every author's name is attached to the entry they wrote. At the end of the dictionary there's an index linking each author to all their entries and then a short blurb for each of them and the artists. This is very much a collection of author ads.
Dictionary-ness: This is not very dictionary-y. It's more of an encyclopedia. The authors collected here are storytellers, not editors or definers, and the number of entries in this book that are in dictionary form is vastly overshadowed by sprawling, sequential series of text. Sometimes this is intentionally done as a subversive joke, but with the non-coordination of a three-month schedule, too many people made that joke for it to land. Sometimes authors did not care to split their ideas into many different terms, just glomming them into one big line. This is better fit for an encyclopedia. However, those who broke separate ideas into entries really shined. These entries functioned as a series of callbacks that build how such an idea really works. I do believe they intentionally relied on the order of the alphabet in order to pace exposition to what would be confusing to piece together, so it's not like that doesn't have its tricks as well.
I didn't discredit the long-form, though. There was really rich dirt for further digging, like turning the future into an optimistic fairy tale, turning Ancient Egyptian setting into political events that involve voting out the Pharaoh. There was even niche and offensive fetish porn with no observable other purpose. That soil was not very rich.
Idea repetition: far too much. Since these authors seemed to work in isolation from each other, I think this book would have benefited immensely from more base guidelines and a metadata creator/manager. Basic guidelines would be the date this dictionary "was" "published," and stuff like that. Contributors set things all over the coming millennium, up to 3002. The United States kept the same borders. Contributors beat W. Bush, the Iraq war, and other current events into the ground. Similar ideas—namely, the creation of a second USA in a pocket dimension—got recreated several times because there was no communication. If people could scroll the metadata and add to each other, this would be a much more interesting book.
Drawings: What's usually visual example in dictionaries is in here re-imagining of specific entries as political cartoons.
I'll end the overview here, I guess.
January 2, 2022
SIX WORD REVIEW: Read Nicole Krauss's definition of 'earthborn'.
May 4, 2013
This book is written by great charming witty authors, however it's fully loaded with political content for American (yes, just like the title) making it not really enjoyable for daily reading. Also the dictionary format, for me personally, got you lost in the thought of: why should I read this book alphabetically (the reason how it took me 4 years to finish this book).
However, I love the CD coming along with this book called "Future Soundtrack of America" with nice tracks from OK Go, Death Cab for Cutie and even Yeah Yeah Yeahs.
However, I love the CD coming along with this book called "Future Soundtrack of America" with nice tracks from OK Go, Death Cab for Cutie and even Yeah Yeah Yeahs.
Read
February 21, 2010"The Library of Congress Subject Heading for this book is \Social Prediction,\"" a subject populated almost entirely with analyses of 1984. But the Future Dictionary feels more like Dave Eggers took Orwell out for drinks, and this is the accumulation of scribbles on their cocktail napkins. Brilliant, tongue-in-cheek definitions that subtly (and not so subtly) mock the current administration. With contributions by about two hundred authors, most of whom have Pulitzers, Booker Prizes, or hefty New Yorker contributions."""
June 7, 2007
This book is a much better concept than project (which could be said with some credibility about the whole McSweeney's endeavor.) We get it: you're literary hipsters.
The cd that came with the book is pretty good--though if you truly are a hipster, you've already discovered and grown to hate these bands.
The cd that came with the book is pretty good--though if you truly are a hipster, you've already discovered and grown to hate these bands.
Read
August 16, 2008Written and published by the McSweeney's crew in 2004, just before the reelection of GWB. As such it's really sad--lots of the definitions refer to the defeat of Bush in 2004 and the subsequent trials of members of his administration, which didn't and won't ever happen. Alas. Comes with a CD featuring a terrific Mike Doughty track.
April 3, 2014
This book is FUNNY and UNSETTLING at the same time. Writers have made up words with hilarious definitions and give existing words new meaning, with the Constitution and Kurt Vonnegut's Cold Turkey essay included in the appendices. A great idea for a fundraiser turned into a satirical romp through the 90s and early naughts - a treasure! I highly recommend it.
Currently reading
September 29, 2007see, i used to read the webster's as a kid. this is one of those books i pick up when i'm depressed about the current politico-cultural milieu. i open it up and read a random definition, chuckle, and go back to reading the newspaper.
April 30, 2008
i love the folks at McSweeney's and a good bit of their output, but this was a little too clever for my taste. it offered nothing but a few cheap shots at the administration and the way of things in general. no real analysis, just a lot of overly-clever smarm.
March 31, 2007
Great idea -- but do they really expect me to read the dictionary?
June 28, 2007
Fictional Historical Hillarity at its best.
July 28, 2023
Such smart-asses. A smart-ass, witty, and intelligent commentary on the nation in 2004 (and, unfortunately, before and since then).
July 6, 2007
Sometimes those mcSweeneys folks are just a little too clever for their own good. I'm sure this is brilliant in some meta kind of way. But it was also expensive, boring, and unreadable.
September 5, 2007
Alternates between corny and brilliant.
February 22, 2008
Hilarious book with a great CD!
May 5, 2008
Hilarious dictionary. I have fun flipping through random pages and picking out the first word my eyes rest on. Definitely one of the best books I have ever received from McSweeney's.
Want to read
November 18, 2008bought sometime before the 2004 election
November 3, 2010
Though it reads like a dictionary, it is very entertaining and the attached soundtrack is likewise phenomenal. Good bathroom reading.
May 13, 2008
McSweeneys. I want to like you... but I generally don't.
July 4, 2008
pretty funny - especially foer's entries.
Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews