"How do I get my word in the dictionary?" This is a question that lexicographers in the Lounge and elsewhere are asked more often than you might expect. While it might be unkind to characterize the sort of person who asks the question, we hope it will be instructive to describe how new words actually make their way into dictionaries. That, in turn, should reveal why there are probably many better things to do in life than getting one's word in the dictionary. By doing some of them, you might get your word in anyway.  Continue reading...

Fred Shapiro, the editor of The Yale Book of Quotations we interview in this week's "Behind the Dictionary" feature, recommends these books on the history and importance of quotations:

The Quote Sleuth by Anthony W. Shipps

Nice Guys Finish Seventh: False Phrases, Spurious Sayings, and Familiar Misquotations by Ralph Keyes

They Never Said It: A Book of Fake Quotes, Misquotes, and Misleading Attributions by Paul F. Boller

The World in a Phrase: A History of Aphorisms by James Geary

Gelett Burgess. Rings a bell? This irrepressible early 20th century figure was at once a linguistic inventor, humorist, poet and creative powerhouse who today is... almost forgotten. Which is a shame, and which is why we celebrate the re-release after a long, long slumber of his classic Burgess Unabridged: A Classic Dictionary of Words You Have Always Needed. We spoke to lexicographer Paul Dickson, who wrote a new foreword to the book, about this remarkable man and his work.  Continue reading...

"About 16,000 words have succumbed to the pressures of the Internet age and lost their hyphens," says a recent report from Reuters. Why did they disappear? Read the story here.

That extra bit of dust floating about this month is from some venerable old tomes we pulled down from the Lounge library shelves to investigate a word pattern brought to our attention by a Lounge visitor. We hope that he will find the results of our investigation... splendid!  Continue reading...

Check out Ethnologue for a comprehensive cataloguing of the world's known living languages -- almost seven thousand of them! From Senegal's 36 tongues to China's 235, the site breaks down languages by size, family and country. Fascinating fact from the site: "95% of languages are spoken by only 6% of the world's people." Wow.