Word by Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries

by Kory Stamper

The blocks become smaller, able to be wedged into any noticeable gaps in our walls. “Lay” is used with a stated object (“lay the book on the table”) and “lie” is used without a stated object (“I’m going to lie down on the sofa”);

Will, in the first person singular and plural, promises or threatens; in the second and third persons, only foretells; shall on the contrary, in the first person, simply foretells; in the second and third persons, promises, commands, or threatens”)

The fact is that many of the things that are presented to us as rules are really just the of-the-moment preferences of people who have had the opportunity to get their opinions published and whose opinions end up being reinforced and repeated down the ages as Truth.

"El hecho es que muchas de las cosas que se nos presentan como reglas son realmente sólo las preferencias del momento de personas que tuvieron la oportunidad de publicar sus opiniones y cuyas opiniones resultaron ser reforzadas y repetidas en el tiempo como verdad".

The meaning is something that resides in the word, and the definition is a description of that. But a definition is an artificial thing.”

When you deal with that level of hatred and anger for weeks at a time, there are two paths of sanity open to you: quit your job, or crack jokes. I needed the money, so humor it was.

I call it “craft” and not “art” for connotative reasons. “Art” conjures an image of the lexicographer as medium or conduit—a live wire that merely transmits something unkenned, alien. But “craft” implies care, repetitive work, apprenticeship, and practice. It is something that is within most people’s reach, but few people devote themselves to it long enough and with enough intensity to do it well.

Bookstores shared “a cultivative interest” with publishers: more book buyers were good for both of them. But search engines and Internet ad providers don’t share that interest, or at least not in the same way. They truck in a type of user engagement that dictionaries are historically not good at. As Emily said, people now pay with their eyes, not with their wallets, which means that an online dictionary that runs ads needs to keep eyeballs on its pages longer. The craft of writing a good definition isn’t important in the click economy: what is important is being agile enough to do what it takes to get to the top of an Internet search results page. It’s a very sudden shift for the staid lexicographer who likes to keep low to the ground.

Estoy terminando este libro y hasta en las últimas páginas me siento apelada.