While gathering research for my interview with lexicographer Erin McKean, I had a sudden, humbling realisation. I take words for granted in a big way. Now that I’ve confessed, you should think about it too - how often do you race through texts in order to come to terms with its overarching message, without appreciating the choice of words that the writer selected to make his or her meaning known exactly the way it was meant to be? Or when you are writing do you really consider the vast range of words you could use to be that much more erudite?

My moment of enlightenment led me to start thinking of all the many-syllabled words I could have used to more impressively form this article’s introductory paragraph. I was stopped in my tracks when I was suddenly overwhelmed with a mild panic attack and had to engage in pranayama exercises. I have similar feelings when spending too much time in a library, or wondering around the web for too long: so much knowledge – so little time! Although in this case I was word-stricken.

After calming down, I decided to embraced the vast universe of words and found myself distracted by Googling the meanings of the most fascinating words I could find, while proceeding on a 20 minute tangent to try find the longest word in the English dictionary. For your information, it turns out that this depends on the definition of what constitutes an English word, though I think the most convincing one is ‘pseudopseudohypoparathyroidism’ - the longest non-coined word in a major dictionary. (Now try saying it five times fast!)

Let’s say Erin McKean opened up a world of weird and wonderful words for me. Which makes sense because she’s Chief Consulting Editor for American Dictionaries for Oxford University Press, and the author of the aptly titled Weird and Wonderful Words, More Weird and Wonderful Words, Totally Weird and Wonderful Words, and a book on words of love from around the world, That's Amore.

Ethan Zuckerman, in his post about her address at Pop! Tech 2006 said, “People assume they’re [lexicographers are] the cross between the stereotype of librarians and stern nuns: grammar thugs who will tell you you’re mispronouncing ‘nausea’ and then tell you to wash your hands.” Well, Erin, who has been referred to as “the queen and rock star among lexicographers" is not that type of girl.

For one, Erin is a self-proclaimed geek who runs two very cool blogs called Dictionary Evangelist and Dress-a-Day, and she guest blogs on various sites too. She is a member of the Advisory Board of the WikiMedia Foundation, and has great ideas about how the Internet is changing the way that lexicographers do their jobs, and how we use dictionaries online. She gave an informative talk at TED in March this year on the topic - check it out!

In her address, she spoke about how the Internet is speeding up the process of compiling dictionaries, but it hasn’t changed the original, static design of online dictionary pages. While Wiktionary, a collaborative project to create a free multilingual dictionary, is one of the most popular wikis on the web, with 566,815 entries in 401 languages – according to her vision there seems to be a whole world of opportunities for making dictionaries even more user friendly in the dynamic world of the Internet.

I was really interested to delve deeper into this issue and find out more about how digital technology will affect the way we use, create and access dictionaries in the future. I chatted with Erin to learn more about herself, about her ‘sci-fi’ dictionary of the future and how we can make her dictionary dreams come true.

Question: Imagine that it’s the year 2027. What format do dictionaries come in, how and when are they used, what bonus features do they have to make words more meaningful, and do lexicographers still have jobs?

Answer: Well, as it's my vision of the future, I'd like to think that lexicographers would still have jobs... But in 2027, I think that dictionaries will be ambient. They'll be built into everything - every book you buy, every gadget you carry - and they'll give you word answers whenever and in whatever format you like. So if you're reading a book and come across a word you don't know, you'll perform some minimal gesture and see the word's meaning, etymology, pronunciation, and then a list of the other places that word's been used, both by the author you're reading and other people.

You'll also see statistics: how frequent is the word? And maybe even other information, such as words that are related, words that people using this word use or avoid, etc. You'll be able to leave your own comment about the word, too, for other people to read. Basically, you could get any kind of lexical information you could imagine, and it would be customisable, too. You'll be able to add words to your 'life list' automatically - how cool would it be to have a record of every word you've ever read, with frequency statistics? It'd be used for writing, too - you'd be able to set 'reminders' for yourself, so if you used a particular word too often you'd be reminded to switch it up. And as new words were coined you could subscribe to a new-word feed, filtered by subject. I could go on...

Question: With your vision for 2027 in mind, do you think that we are currently starting to move towards realising that vision, and how are we doing this?

Answer: Whoa! I think we are starting to see interest in this vision, if not yet significant movement, at least if the number of people emailing me can be taken as an acceptable metric...

I do think the wiki-model is very interesting and will be essential to integrate into any new dictionary thinking - what words mean is a shared delusion, after all! The important thing is to come up with a method to show what is fact and what is opinion; both have their place in describing a word but shouldn't be conflated.

To get to the 2027 dictionary I think we need to start thinking that every word is worthwhile, and figure out how to be more inclusive, both theoretically and practically. By 'every word is worthwhile' I don't mean that every word can be used in every situation - I just mean that all words are worthy of the 'dictionary treatment'.

Question: How did you know that you wanted to work as a lexicographer? What was the defining moment?

Answer: I've wanted to be a lexicographer since I was eight years old; hardly anyone ever believes this but that's because the story is so unbelievable. When I was eight I read everything that my parents brought into the house (which was hard on them, since if they wanted to read anything unsuitable for an eight-year-old they had to hide it). One day my dad brought home the Wall St. Journal and I read an article about the creation of the Supplement to the Oxford English Dictionary and thought - that's it, that's the job for me.

In fact, that article was so important to me that I saved it! It turned up a few years ago and I scanned it, so if you want to see it yourself, it's here.

Question: So, to conclude, I bet you get asked what your favourite word is all the time, so I’d like to know what is the most surprising word you ever discovered, and why was it surprising? (I’m thinking surprising as in “Wow, I would never have thought that word belonged with this meaning!”)

Answer: Oh, that's a hard question! Actually, the reverse is more often true - I often find words that couldn't possibly mean anything but what they mean, words like 'ygology', which is the study of palindromes. But I have had people tell me that my favourite word, 'erinaceous' (which means 'like a hedgehog') doesn't seems like me, as I am neither spiky nor shy!

tags: Chicago United States culture commoner-profile commons dictionaries internet future erin-mckean

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