Do you have strong feelings about the word "irregardless"? Have you ever tried to define the word "is"? Brimming with intelligence and personality, this vastly entertaining account of how dictionaries are made is a must-read for word mavens.
KORY STAMPERis a lexicographer at Merriam-Webster, where she also writes, edits, and appears in the "Ask the Editor" video series. She blogs regularly on language and lexicography at www.korystamper.com, and her writing has appeared in The Guardian and The New York Times, and on Slate.com.
"[An] eloquent love letter to letters themselves. . . . A cheerful and thoughtful rebuke of the cult of the grammar scolds." --The Atlantic
"Both memoir and expose, an insider's tour of the inner circles
of the mysterious fortress that is Merriam-Webster. Stamper leads
us through her own lexicographical bildungsroman, exploring how she
fell in love with words and showing us how the dictionary works,
and how it interacts with the world that it strives to reflect."
--Adrienne Raphel, The New Yorker
"As a writer, Stamper can do anything with words. . . . You will
never take a dictionary entry for granted again." --Mary Norris,
best-selling author of Between You & Me: Confessions of a Comma
Queen "A fascinating, even enthralling, examination of the way
words actually work in our language, warts and all." --The A.V.
Club "An unlikely page-turner. . . . Stamper displays a
contagious enthusiasm for words and a considerable talent for
putting them together." --The New Yorker "Word by
Word cherishes the dexterity involved in making dictionaries,
and . . . proves refreshingly attentive to its human stories. Part
of its quirky charm is a delight in the idiosyncrasies of
others--not least Merriam-Webster's many correspondents." --The
Wall Street Journal "Packed with the kind of word-lore that
keeps readers and writers up late at night: Where do our words come
from? How and why do their meanings change year to year, century to
century?" --The Dallas Morning News "Great fun. . . .
[Stamper] brings both zest and style. . . . An exuberant mash note
to language." --The Times Literary Supplement "[Word by
Word] mixes memoiristic meditations on the lexicographic life
along with a detailed description of the brain-twisting work of
writing dictionaries." --The New York Times "Anyone who
loves words or has opinions about them will have fun in this
sandbox of a book." --The Washington Times "A delectable
feast. . . . [Stamper] declaims elegantly on the beauty and
necessity of dialect, how to evaluate emerging words, and many
other topics. [She] is at her best when entertaining the reader
with amusing etymologies, celebrating the contentiousness of
grammar, and quoting annoying emails from an opinionated public,"
--Publishers Weekly (starred review) "Fascinating. . . .
Part memoir, part workplace chronicle and part history lesson."
--The New York Post "A lexicographical bildungsroman. . . .
[Stamper] presents passionate, precise, good-humored (and
bad-humored) descriptions of every stage of the process that goes
into making an entry." --The Chronicle of Higher Education
"[Word by Word] entertains as much as it instructs."
--Baltimore Sun "A captivating book." --Lincoln Journal
Star "Idiosyncratic and engaging." --The Gazette (Cedar
Rapids, IA) "A smart, sparkling and often hilarious valentine to
the content and keepers of dictionaries. . . . A paean to the craft
of lexicography.'" --Shelf Awareness "A funny inside look at
how new words make their way into dictionaries, an irreverent take
on the history of English itself, and a memoir of [Stamper's] own
journey." --Daily Hampshire Gazette "[A] marvelous insight
into the messy world behind the tidy definitions on the page. . . .
By turns amusing, frustrating, surprising, and above all,
engrossing. It is perhaps unsurprising, given her line of work,
that Stamper employs words with delightful precision in her
writing." --Booklist
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