Daniel Cassidy's "How the Irish Invented Slang" was recently the subject of a flattering (some might say fawning) story in The New York Times.

Grant Barrett, professional lexicographer and the editor of The Official Dictionary of Unofficial English, called bullshit on Cassidy in a post on his blog and here on Wordie. Our own beloved sionnach weighs in as well.

It's not exactly bareknuckles--this is Wordie, we try to be civilized--but it's edifying to hear from the pros about what constitutes proper lexicography. I'd like to hear Cassidy's response (Barrett isn't the only one to find fault), but as far as I can tell he hasn't responded to his critics, on Wordie or anywhere else.

Labels: Daniel Cassidy, Grant Barrett, lexicographers, nextNY, slang

LT Tim just sent me a TED talk by Erin McKean, lexicographer to the stars. That's her on stage, beneath a portrait of Einstein, standing next to what appears to be a giant wooden dodecahedron*. And it looks like there's some kind of psychedelic light show happening on stage right.

TED's self-conscious "we're smart" staging aside, the talk is great, and what she describes toward the end sounds a lot like Wordie, or what I hope Wordie will become. She makes the point that there are lots of good word collecting sites**, but they don't do enough to show the context of words, to provide sources, citations, and provenance. The comments and citations, the links, jokes, and usage notes on Wordie are my Favorite part of the site, and finding good citations and quotes to add to Wordie has made reading a lot more fun for me, something I hadn't thought possible. God forbid Wordie ever become too serious an endeavor, but it would be cool if, over time, our collective scavenging helped Wordie evolve into a useful language tool.

* UPDATE: see comments for what it really is
** I disagree. There's only one :-)

Labels: Erin McKean, lexicographers, TED