The Story of Ain’t

May 24, 2012 - 10:05am — Bibliofuture

Book

The Story of Ain't: America, Its Language, and the Most Controversial Dictionary Ever Published

Humanities editor Skinner, who is on the usage panel for the American Heritage Dictionary, offers a highly entertaining and intelligent re-creation of events surrounding the 1961 publication of Webster’s Third New International Dictionary by G. & C. Merriam. The dictionary, assembled at a cost of $3.5 million, included a press release from Merriam’s president Gordon J. Gallan, which said the work contained “an avalanche of bewildering new verbal concepts.”

Starred review at Publisher's Weekly

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June 21, 2012 - 8:58am — Bibliofuture

Dictionaries and books about words

This book about Webster's Third New International Dictionary got me looking into other dictionaries and books about words. Here are a few interesting books I found.

The Endangered English Dictionary: Bodacious Words Your Dictionary Forgot

The Describer's Dictionary: A Treasury of Terms & Literary Quotations

The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary (P.S.)

How Language Works

Random House Webster's Word Menu

Eunoia: The Upgraded Edition
Wikipedia entry about Eunoia.

Uncreative Writing: Managing Language in the Digital Age

The Power of Babel: A Natural History of Language

Word on the Street: Debunking the Myth of "Pure" Standard English