While compiling the Oxford English Dictionary, lexicographer James Murray exchanged hundreds of letters a week with authors, advisors, and volunteer researchers. A new collection online lets you eavesdrop on discussions about which words should be...
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, a word-pecker is “a person who trifles or plays with, or quibbles over, words.” This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Word-Peckers” I always love it when I’m looking through the dictionary and...
Morgan from Los Angeles, California, has always used dingy (pronounced with a hard G, like dinghy) to describe that woozy, muddle-headed feeling that comes with being sick, a sense she picked up from her mother. Standard dictionaries offer entries...
Do you refer to your dog or cat as “somebody”? As in: When you love somebody that much, you don’t mind if they slobber. In other words, is your pet a somebody or a something? Also, for centuries, there was little consistency in the way many English...
If there’s a logophile on your gift list, you have lots of choices, including a new trivia game for language-lovers and a murder mystery for the word-obsessed. Plus, if someone calls you a schmoozer, should you be flattered or insulted? And if...
Susie Dent’s murder mystery Guilty by Definition (Bookshop|Amazon) follows a lexicographer in Oxford who becomes a sleuth of a different kind, seeking the culprit in a long-unsolved killing. A lexicographer herself, Dent includes lots of obscure and...