As tell to Jen Doll
As a lexicologist for Merriam - Webster , Kory Stamperdefines new language ( a personal favorite?mosh ) and update old unity . She explain what it take aim to become a word , why angry letters are also inspiring , and how a day in the life of a dictionary editor in chief includes both dying threats and union proposition .
1 . Becoming a lexicographer was completely an accident . It ’s not a job your high school guidance counselor has a folder on . I stumbled across a want ad for an editorial supporter . I got call for the interview and found out it was for Merriam - Webster . I thought , Oh , I was a nerdy Kyd , sure , I could do that . Within a distich of calendar month , I realized this was incisively what I needed to do .
2 . My job is to fix raw parole and update old single . Part of that means always collect grounds of how discussion are used in photographic print and online and adding that to a big database , which we call the citations file . From there , I can take apart whether each meaning we ’ve collect for a parole — say , dark-green — is already cut across by an live definition , if that existing definition needs to be broaden or constringe , or if we need to write a raw definition . It ’s a jumbo matching game .
3 . People think there ’s a solemnisation for every new Christian Bible …… but some twenty-four hours I might draft seven fresh entries .
4 . When I first started , I think I ’d keep a inclination of words I write Modern entries for . I give up after a year and a 50 - page - long leaning . At this point , when citizenry ask how many words I ’ve inscribe , I ca n’t separate them . I have probably attend at every single entry in all of our dictionary .
5 . I do have a handful of words I give multitude when they ask “ What quarrel have you defined that you ’re proud of?”I whole revised the entree for God in the Unabridged . It had been compose in the mid-’50s . There was no mother wit that covered Grecian or Roman gods of mythology , or any of the incidental USA of God , likeOMG , orGod help oneself you .
6 . To be a new entry , a word must fit three criteria . First , widespread habit . If it only appear inWine Spectator , it ’s not a great candidate . Second , it has to have sustained usage over a sealed period of time ( usually years ) . mass think of the dictionary as being either the porter or the haemorrhage edge , but it ’s neither . By the time a word is in a dictionary , most people have at least seen it . Third , it has to have a meaning . There are words without a conventional meaning that get used a lot , likeantidisestablishmentarianism . It ’s used as an example of a longsighted word , but it does n’t have a lexical definition .
7 . The gatekeepers are the editors . Maybe I ’m going to countenance anughcome through , but not anew , for exercise .
8 . Most words do n’t enter the language in a smooth , up motion . You’ll get spike heel — run-in will drop out , then spike again . There ’s a jaggy upward vogue for most quarrel . AIDS , I think , we entered within a year of its first purpose . It was clear it was not going aside anytime soon .
9 . Some word take eternally to fully introduce the language . The first spell purpose of the wordkorma , for the Indian dish antenna , was in the 1830s or so . It did n’t enter the language until the late nineties . Now it shows up on Indian menus . It ’s sort of at the halfway point .
10 . I ’ve been at this line for almost 17 class . That ’s kind of crazy in this Clarence Shepard Day Jr. and age , but it does n’t get boring . You must have a brink for the same oeuvre over and over again , but you may find things that are Modern and fresh and interesting .
11 . I ’ve get marriage proposition , and also death threat . Because language is cosmopolitan , people feel very powerfully about it . They have no trouble cash in one’s chips from “ I do n’t like this word or what it interpret ” to “ I do n’t like the lexicon ” to “ I do n’t care the editor . ” One year , Stephen Colbert noticed we had entered a sense of marriage that covered same - sex married couple . The hatred mail hail in libertine and furious .
12 . Even when citizenry get tempestuous , it ’s inspiring . They’re engaging with language , and I can serve them do that .
