Getting A Word Into The Dictionary

Welcome to Fiat Lex, a podcast about dictionaries by people who write them! Yes, really.

Meet Kory and Steve, your intrepid and nerdy lexicographer-hosts who will give you the drudge's-eye view of English and dictionaries in all their weirdness. In our first episode, we:

- blow your minds by telling you that "the dictionary" doesn't exist; - talk about how new words get into dictionaries (not by petition, so STOP ASKING) and how that's not as straightforward a process as you would think; - explain how lexicographers find new words, which sometimes involves beer and diapers; - touch on how words get taken out of dictionaries, and how that's not as straightforward a process as you would think, either. Assuming you think about such things. (Who are we kidding here?)

BONUS FEATURES! - Kory spells a word aloud correctly, which will probs never happen again; - Steve channels Chumley the Walrus and then goes right into fancy linguist talk about velars and coronals; - Tennessee represents!

TRANSCRIPT BELOW

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Steve:   Hi, I'm Steve Kleinedler

Kory:     and I'm Kory Stamper.

Steve:   Welcome to Fiat Lex,

Kory:     a podcast about dictionaries by people who write dictionaries.

Steve:   We're so glad you're here listening to us talk about this. So we've been thinking about doing this for while.

Kory:     Yeah, and we just want to give you a little intro. What's the whole point of doing a podcast about dictionaries? Well, dictionaries have lots of interesting information in them and everyone uses them.

Steve:   And who are we, you might be wondering? Why should you be listening to us as opposed to anyone who has a concrete thought about anything under the sun? Kory and I have both worked on a dictionaries for several years. I was on staff with the American Heritage Dictionary for over 20 years,

Kory:     and I was on the staff of the Merriam-Webster dictionaries for over 20 years. Gosh, we've probably got 50 years of editing experience between us.

Steve:   Yeah. Especially if you count all the stuff we did beforehand. I worked on a lot of dictionaries for a company that was called National Textbook Company that has since had been eaten and subsumed by other media conglomerates. They might be part of Tronc now for all I know.

Kory:     TRONNNC

Steve:   The Tribune group. And my background is I have a degree in linguistics. I took a lexicography course at Northwestern and I started getting freelance work from my professor after I graduated, and one thing led to another, as they say.

Kory:     And I have no degree in linguistics. I have a degree in medieval studies and I fell into this job-- literally, almost tripped on a newspaper which had the want-ad for the Merriam Webster position.

Steve:   Well, medieval studies though, are hugely important in this field from the standpoint of etymology or just understanding how words work.

Kory:     Yeah, that's true. There are a lot of medievalists in dictionary companies. We could run our own Ren Faire.

Steve:   Yes. And that ties in also--we have both written books. I have written a English textbook called "Is English changing?" published by Routledge and the Linguistic Society of America,

Kory:     And I have written a not-textbook, regular-book, called "Word by Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries," which is out in paperback this year.

Steve:   And in that book you can find out how Kory literally tripped over a newspaper and ended up in the position that she did.

Kory:     So to speak. All right, so again, dictionaries. What are they? Why are they? Who uses them? Who cares?

Steve:   Everyone uses them to some extent, whether-- Even though people may not use print ones as much as people used to, certainly people look up words all the time, whether they enter terminology into a search bar or look it up in print. That content comes from somewhere.

Kory:     And we are the people who write that content. One of the questions we get all the time and we thought would be a great question to address today in our inaugural podcast, is how words get into the dictionaries that you use

Steve:   and how they get out of them.

Kory:     Yes. Yeah. Let's talk about--let's talk about how words move in and out.

Steve:   Well, it's important to note that some people-- you hear people refer to "The Dictionary" as if there were only one in one authority, kind of like the Bible--which is also laughable because there's multiple versions of the Bible as well. Dictionaries are still in the process of being written, compiled, dictionary entries are being drafted, edited, written, and existing ones change over t