Erin McKean (born 1971) is an American lexicographer, based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Read full biography of Erin McKean →
All words have life cycles.
If you say 'anti-aging,' how anti would it have to be, really? My guess is not much. Any amount of sunscreen could be considered anti-aging.
Objections to verbification in English tend to be motivated by personal taste, not clarity. Verbed words are usually easily understood. When a word... →
Part of the joy and pleasure of English is its boundless creativity: I can describe a new machine as bicyclish, I can say that I'm vitamining... →
By the time the traditionally male lexicographers become interested in looking at fashion words, their origins are lost in the mists of time.
If words are doing their job, then their novelty will not be the most noticeable thing about them.
We've been using 'rejuvenate,' meaning to restore youth, to make young again, as a verb for at least 200 years.
All language is a popularity contest.
Language is a nice way to remember things.
Lexicographers are language reporters.
Most of the words you know and love and use every day are not words you learned by looking them up in a dictionary and reading a definition.
There are hundreds of thousands of words that aren't in any print dictionary today... because there's no space for all of them.
There are very few good ways to get publicity for a dictionary.
Erin McKean (born 1971) is an American lexicographer, based in the San Francisco Bay Area.