Word by Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries

by Kory Stamper

You must avoid any hint of perceived bias anywhere in the verbal illustration. Your illustration for “conservative” that reads <the conservative party blocked the measure> will be read as saying that people who identify as conservative are obstructionist; change that to <he votes a straight conservative ticket>, and you’ll hear from people who think that the dictionary is trying to tell them how to vote. Even something you consider to be as innocuous as possible—<I love pizza a lot>—could end up garnering unwarranted criticism. Never mind that this illustrates “lot”: someone will write in to ask, “How can you love pizza; are you a pervert?”*3 Further, be aware that writing a verbal illustration like <tomorrow is supposed to be sunny> may be problematic, because there are supposedly people out there who will assume that if they look up “suppose” in the dictionary and read <tomorrow is supposed to be sunny>, that means tomorrow will, in fact, be sunny, and they will write in and complain when tomorrow is not sunny. According to one senior editor who worked on the Third, Gove himself prohibited these types of verbal illustrations on the grounds that the reader wouldn’t be able to distinguish between a dictionary and a Magic 8 Ball (my paraphrase) and would take us at our word. What if tomorrow isn’t sunny?