Saturday, May 19, 2018

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

  • How do dictionaries get written?
  • What is it like to be a lexicographer at a major dictionary?
  • What word took Kory Stamper the longest to define?
  • What word brought her death threats?
  • Should dictionaries be descriptive or prescriptive?
  • Why don't dictionaries use the international phonetic alphabet?

If these sort of questions interest you, then Word by Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries is your sort of book. Kory Stamper writes well, with humor mixed in with the description of working at a dictionary. I found it fascinating.

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