Book spine poem: Walking Word by Word

Ninety years ago today, the first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary – 414,825 words defined in 15,487 pages over 12 volumes – was completed. Invited by its editors to mark the anniversary, I’ve made a new book spine poem, dedicated to the OED and to James Murray:

[click to enlarge]

*

Walking Word by Word

Caught in the web of words,
The loom of language,
The stuff of thought,
The story of writing ­­–
a line made by
walking word by
word through the
language glass.

*

‘I’m done my homework’, part II

In February I discussed a usage item that popped up in a crime novel by Michael Connelly (‘Harry Bosch, trainee prescriptivist’). In fact there were a couple of related items: the use of done for finished (‘I’m done eating’), and the use of done in phrases like I’m done my work, as opposed to I’ve done my work or I’m done with my work.

The first of these is really a non-issue, peeved about only by peevers who love peeving peevily. The second one is more interesting, as it’s a dialectal usage apparently little known beyond those areas where it’s perfectly normal. I’m done my homework may grate on ears unused to it, but it’s in no way wrong: it’s just nonstandard.

The next month, by complete coincidence, I encountered the construction again, this time in non-fiction. Even better, it came with lexicographic expertise and sociolinguistic commentary, because the source was Word By Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries by Kory Stamper, a writer and editor of dictionaries at Merriam-Webster.

Book review: ‘Word by Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries’ by Kory Stamper

Dictionaries occupy a unique cultural space straddling invisibility and authority. Those of us with a keen interest in words, be it professional, hobbyist, or obsessive to the point of mania, now and then ponder the mystique of these works of reference. Who writes them? What drew them to the work? How were they trained? Who decides what to include? How, exactly, do dictionaries come to be?

Word by Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries by Kory Stamper, an associate editor at Merriam-Webster, answers all the questions you might care to ask a lexicographer. It casts a coruscating light on the never-ending work of a dictionary – ‘a human document, constantly being compiled, proofread, and updated by actual, living, awkward people’ – and also, necessarily, on words themselves in all their strange, slippery wonder.

Each chapter in Word by Word is named after a word that serves as a base from which Stamper explores deeper, broader issues of lexicography and of the English language, such as its history, politics, and essential mutability. For example, ‘Irregardless: On Wrong Words’ examines variety in English negation and the social status of dialects. Stamper’s initial aversion to irregardless, this ‘harbinger of linguistic doom’, softens through exposure and investigation to the point where she becomes ‘America’s foremost “irregardless” apologist’.

harm•less drudg•ery: a new language blog

Lovers of words and languages will share my delight at the arrival of harm•less drudg•ery, a new language blog from Kory Stamper.

Kory is a lexicographer at Merriam-Webster; you might remember her from such videos as Slang, Octopus, and Christmas vs. Xmas (or from comments she has left on Sentence first). Her working day consists of “reading citations and trying to define words like ‘Monophysite’ and ‘bodice ripper.’”

In her introductory post, Kory writes with wit and insight about how she fell into the world of dictionaries, what lexicography is and is not, and how deep is her love of words (the phrase coke fiend appears in this context). But a love of words is not enough:

a love of words—even the unloved, unlovely bastard ones—does not guarantee that one will excel at, or even enjoy, lexicography. The two primary requirements for my job are a good grasp on the rules, requirements, and idioms of your target language, and a willingness to throw two-thirds of that out the window in the face of cold, hard facts about usage.

Go read, bookmark, subscribe.