Related to my theme of languages, but through pure serendipitous discovery via my addiction to watching TED Talks, check out this TED talk by Erin McKean on Redefining the Dictionary.
I LOVE this lady and her TED Talk for several reasons:
- As much as anyone, she’s in charge of the English language.
- She loves words and so do I.
- She gets to call herself a lexicographer, which as she explains also lets her say things like lexicographical which is a double dactyl like higgledy piggledy.
- Her desire to be a word fisherman rather than policeman, so she “… can go throw her net out and see what she can drag up from the bottom of the sea.”
- Her great sense of humor and ebullient presentation style.
- Her wonderful irreverence towards what makes a word “official” or “proper”, good or bad. Instead she focuses on what is useful for communicating.
- Her focus on inclusion rather than exclusion.
- Her appreciation and support for neologizing, which is the invention of new words and something I’m all too fond of doing!
- An entire presentation without ONE bullet point or text slide! I’m inspired!
This is DEFINITELY worth 16 minutes and 02 seconds of your precious time!
Erin also maintains several blogs that are also worth checking out. See her bio info below for links to a few of them and then go from there.
And if you liked this presentation, you probably will enjoy her great Slideshare presentation on “If Language Weren’t a Commons”.
From her bio on the TED site:
Why you should listen to her:
Much to Erin McKean's delight, her job as editor in chief of the Oxford American Dictionary involves living in a constant state of research. McKean searches high and low -- from books to blogs, newspapers to cocktail parties, The New Scientist to Entertainment Weekly -- for new words, new meanings for old words, or signs that once-favored terms have fallen out of use. ("Information Superhighway," anyone?) And it's clear that she relishes the hunt.
McKean is also the editor of the language quarterly Verbatim ("language and linguistics for the layperson since 1974") as well as the author of multiple books, including That's Amore and the entire Weird and Wonderful Words series. All that, and she maintains multiple blogs, too: Erin is the keen observationalist behind A Dress a Day and Dictionary Evangelist.
"Ms. McKean is part of the next wave of top lexicographers who have already or may soon take over guardianship of the nation's language, and who disprove Samuel Johnson's definition of a lexicographer as 'a harmless drudge.'"
The New York Times
my comment got eaten. Anyway I wanted to say that it's nice to know that someone else also mentioned this as I had trouble finding the same info elsewhere
Posted by: designer handbag imitation | April 20, 2011 at 09:30 AM