
Ever wonder what happens when "covfefe" breaks the internet? Kory Stamper's insider tour of Merriam-Webster reveals how dictionaries secretly shape culture, sparked political firestorms over "marriage," and why The New Yorker calls it "both memoir and expose" of our evolving language.
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지식을 흥미롭고 예시가 풍부한 인사이트로 전환
핵심 아이디어를 빠르게 캡처하여 신속하게 학습
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Who gets to decide what words mean? Behind every dictionary definition lies a hidden world-a windowless office in Springfield, Massachusetts, where word lovers sit in near-monastic silence, wrestling with language's beautiful chaos. These aren't ivory tower academics or language police; they're ordinary people with coffee-stained desks who spend their days debating whether "irregardless" deserves respect or "literally" can mean figuratively. They're lexicographers, and their work is far stranger and more fascinating than you'd imagine. What makes dictionaries remarkable isn't their authority but their humility-they don't create rules, they simply watch how we use words and write down what they see. Step inside Merriam-Webster's headquarters and you'll find something unexpected: silence. While marketing teams buzz downstairs, the editorial floor remains eerily quiet, populated by people who communicate primarily through email despite sitting ten feet apart. This isn't antisocial behavior-it's professional necessity. Lexicographers need concentration to perform their peculiar work: reading everything from cereal boxes to Supreme Court opinions, marking interesting word usage, and filing away millions of examples for future reference. The job requirements seem deceptively simple-a college degree and native English fluency-but the real qualification is harder to measure. Germans call it "sprachgefuhl," a feeling for language that makes you obsess over the difference between "shimmer" and "glimmer" at dinner parties.
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