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A review by romina_g
Word by Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries by Kory Stamper
5.0
“Word by Word” is at times a memoir, at times an instructional tome on the work of a lexicographer: a person who writes dictionaries.
It is, without question, one of the most interesting books that I’ve read in my lifetime — especially because before it, I wouldn’t have spared a thought for lexicography. Not only does it explain many fascinating things about the English language, but also it manages to be witty and fun.
Some things I learned while reading this book:
- How to (broadly) write a definition for a dictionary (surprisingly more complex than it seems)
- Many bizarre origins of common and not so common English words
- Plenty new vocabulary. You can tell Stamper has a way with language
- The small dots in between words that you find in dictionary entries are not syllable breaks! They are the places where you could split the word with a hyphen if you were to write it in two lines
Some of my favourite quotes:
“While everyone thinks they speak Standard English, no one natively speaks it: Standard English is itself a dialect based on a written ideal that we learn as we gain education. If we all spoke Standard English as a native dialect, then books on ´good grammar´ or ´proper English´ would be useless; we’d already know it.”
“People rarely think of English as a cumulative thing: they might be aware of new coinages that they don’t like, but they view those as recent incursions into the fixed territory they think of as “English,” which was, is, and shall be evermore.”
Above all, I think this book can change your perspective on grammar rules, etymological pedantry, and the language itself. A must read!