Abstract

This book presents the insights and observations on lexicography as acquired by Merriam-Webster copy editor Kory Stamper over a period of some twenty years. It does so with verve, humor, passion, and a heavy dose of personal anecdotes (very welcome). This book isn’t exactly an autobiography, but it comes close.

The observations/insights concern such matters as the enormous time/effort/reflection that can go into defining a single word and the potential minefield presented by the search for suitable verbal illustrations. The nuts-and-bolts work of a copy editor is not normally regarded as interesting to a general readership, and yet Stamper does succeed in bringing the subject to life.

Department(s)

Arts, Languages, and Philosophy

Comments

Book Review of Word by Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries, 2017, by Kory Stamper

Document Type

Review - Book

Document Version

Final Version

File Type

text

Language(s)

English

Rights

© 2018 Gerald Cohen, All rights reserved.

Publication Date

01 Mar 2018

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