Scan barcode
A review by zoot
Word by Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries by Kory Stamper
3.0
This book is one of the few I rate low but with the caveat that MY PROBLEM WITH THE BOOK WAS ENTIRELY READER-CENTERED. It was user-error, not author-error. This was just a struggle for me for a lot of different reasons. First? I am very bored by grammar and etymology and so those sections were a struggle for me. While the author makes it entertaining, it's hard to get through to someone who just is not interested. I actually ended up switching to the audiobook which I 100% recommend. It was so much easier to digest than the written form.
That said - I really enjoyed the other parts. I loved the methodology of how definitions come to be, I like the interesting stories about specific words and their change in modern time. I like a lot of the author's self-deprecating quips because it made me feel a little less intimidated by the book. There are a lot of people who rightfully will love this book, it is informative and well-written. I just struggled with a lot of it.
That said - I really enjoyed the other parts. I loved the methodology of how definitions come to be, I like the interesting stories about specific words and their change in modern time. I like a lot of the author's self-deprecating quips because it made me feel a little less intimidated by the book. There are a lot of people who rightfully will love this book, it is informative and well-written. I just struggled with a lot of it.