Volume 53, Number 7 · April 27, 2006
Word Wizard
By Andrew O'Hagan
Defining the World: The Extraordinary Story of Dr. Johnson's Dictionary
by Henry Hitchings
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 292 pp., $24.00
If you keep an eye on them, you might notice that dictionary-makers are marginally bitchier than catwalk models. A few summers ago, the revised editions of the Chambers Dictionary and the Oxford Dictionary of English were published into an avid marketplace. Out came the lipstick, out came the knives, as the great lexicographers of today rolled their eyes at one another and balanced their inky fingernails on their slender hips. 'Bling-bling' is one word separated by a hyphen, said Oxford. Not at all, honey-pie. Two words and no hyphen, said Chambers, summoning the authority of the ancients, or Puff Daddy, seeing as the ancients were unavailable.
Review, 3021 words
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