Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
By Definition: The Surprising History of the English Dictionary

By Definition: The Surprising History of the English Dictionary

Sokolowski, Peter

Hardcover

Dictionaries & EncyclopediasEtymologyLexicography

Publisher Price: $30.00

PREORDER - Expected ship date February 23, 2027

ISBN10: 1250347580
ISBN13: 9781250347589
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Published: Feb 23 2027
Pages: 400
Weight: 1.00
Height: 1.00 Width: 5.38 Depth: 8.25
Language: English

A veteran Merriam-Webster editor celebrates the world's biggest language through the dictionary

In this engaging narrative lexicographer Peter Sokolowski uncovers the history of our language in the dictionary definitions written from Shakespeare's time to ours. English is always changing. And so our dictionaries present a paradox; they represent stability and standards but they also constantly add new usage and new words (and discard some old ones). The dictionary is, by definition, the story of the way we express culture, authority, and identity with our words.

We haven't always had dictionaries. In Renaissance England, explaining the meanings of words meant translating the Latin of the Church and the French of the Norman bureaucracy. A linguistic class system separated these hard words of privilege, prestige, and power from the native English words of hearth and home. Thus, the most common words in English-from go and green to mother and father-were not given definitions in dictionaries until the mid-18th century.

Dictionaries developed as the language grew, and definitions by British Samuel Johnson and American Noah Webster are compared through Sokolowski's close readings, which take us through the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary and into current online references. Many questions are answered along the way, including: Is irregardless a word? Does literally have only one meaning? And what exactly are users looking up today? Full of fun examples, and peeks into the mysterious world of dictionary creation, this book will delight word lovers of every kind.

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