Culture | Johnson

Subversive facts

Describing language objectively need not meaning doing so dispassionately

SAMUEL JOHNSON, the lexicographer after whom this column is named, famously defined his profession as being that of “a harmless drudge”. In fact, he was neither harmless nor a drudge, but a wit unafraid to provoke, debate and irritate in the course of writing the first great dictionary of the English language.

But Johnson’s fame has never dispelled the idea that the lexicographer is a humdrum, bookish type who reads for precision and who dutifully approves the “right” meanings of “good” words while preventing “wrong” definitions and “bad” words from entering the dictionary. Lexicographers still struggle, largely in vain, to dispel this myth about their role. They put the words that people actually use into the dictionary, good ones and bad ones, new ones and old ones.

In a new book, “Word by Word”, Kory Stamper, a lexicographer for Merriam-Webster, a reference-book publisher, duly carries on the tradition, reminding readers that a lexicographer is a chronicler, not a guardian. She says that a chronicler (like Johnson) need not be meek and dispassionate. Foul-mouthed, opinionated and funny, Ms Stamper has for years written a witty blog called “Harmless Drudgery”. “Word by Word” devotes chapters to each element of a lexicographer’s work, from defining politicised words (like “marriage”) to dealing with irate readers (who never tire of asking why this or that word was let into the dictionary) to dealing with vulgarity, in a chapter named after a female dog.

What is clear is just how often lexicographers must make hard calls about unclear facts. The reader expecting august authority will be disturbed to find that it is not always clear even what part of speech a word belongs to. “But” is usually a conjunction, yet Ms Stamper is not fully sure that it is still one in the sentence “What can they do but try?” A colleague confidently proclaims “but” to be a preposition here. Senior editors sigh, ruling that definitions are more important than grammar in a dictionary, and (rightly) noting that the eight parts of speech into which words are sorted in traditional grammars are not enough for English.

Lexicography is hard. If it were easy, no one would need a dictionary: meaning and use would be obvious to all. But even after years of reading and defining—or as Ms Stamper would put it, especially after years of reading and defining—the lexicographer finds out how slippery language can be. It constantly confounds prejudices (including the lexicographers’ own) and refuses to be pinned down. All dictionary-writers can do, in the end, is work hard to describe how a word is used out in the world. If they tried to let their own personal sense of right and wrong come into it, there would be no way of judging between two editors who disagree, or knowing what to do when an old belief runs against the evidence.

Yet judgment has its place. Ms Stamper frequently makes online videos for Merriam-Webster’s “Ask the Editor” series. One of these is about the plural of “octopus”. Many people will rush to show off their Latin: it must be “octopi”. In fact, the –us ending is misleading; “octopus” originally comes from Greek (pous is foot). If you really want to flaunt your classics training, you should call the eight-footed creatures “octopodes”. But the best bet is to use English’s own rules for creating plurals, and call them “octopuses”, Ms Stamper rules, and don’t let anyone call you “an ignorant slob” for doing so.

Ms Stamper has found the right company to work for. Merriam-Webster’s young social-media team has carried on a kind of subversive empiricism. Its Twitter account, which normally tweets out randomly chosen definitions, will occasionally weigh in on the day’s news. When Kellyanne Conway, a senior adviser to Donald Trump, explained in January that the president sometimes avails himself of “alternative facts”, Merriam-Webster slyly tweeted its definition of “fact”. When Mr Trump tweeted first “I hear by demand”, then quickly changed that to “I hearby demand”, Merriam-Webster simply tweeted its definition of “hereby”.

Lauren Naturale, who runs Merriam-Webster’s social-media accounts, says that the newly popular Twitter feed reflects the tone of the office: “wildly enthusiastic about language; jokey, friendly, but nobody’s fool”. That is the best way to go about language punditry generally. Sticking relentlessly to facts doesn’t make you a drudge; much less does it make you harmless. Facts can be subversive things.

This article appeared in the Culture section of the print edition under the headline "Subversive facts"

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