Word by Word summary

You might think that because your sentences come festooned with bells and whistles, and because you can delicately balance clauses like some sort of Jenga master, that you're a grammar whiz through and through.

If that’s the case, you're mistaken as to what grammar actually involves.

The word “grammar” alone is enough to instantly conjure up images of stern school mistresses chastising their pupils for using “who” instead of “whom.”

In reality, grammar isn’t about stylistic rights and wrongs – and it’s certainly not about judging others.

Ever since the late nineteenth century, Merriam-Webster has welcomed correspondence from its readers. Sometimes readers’ quibbles about linguistic matters lead to some very unexpected debates.

What’s particularly fun are those occasions when words that are often thought of as "wrong" turn out to be absolutely fine.

You might think a dictionary definition would aim at completeness, so that readers could really get to the heart of the matter when they look up a word. But that isn’t the case.

There are actually two types of defining: lexical defining and real defining, and lexicographers limit themselves, naturally, to the former.

It might seem counterintuitive, but dictionaries don’t aim to be comprehensive; the fact of the matter is that not all words make it in.

For a word to be listed in the dictionary, it has to have both wide currency and must also have been used for a long time.

Plenty of wise, intelligent people have uttered intelligent and wise words. So you might think finding quotations for the dictionary would be a breeze.

In reality, finding decent quotations – or citations as they’re known in the industry – for dictionary entries is hard work.

If anything really excites a lexicographer, it’s when the time comes for dictionary revisions. New words are introduced, others removed, and it’s lexicographers who get to make those decisions.

It’s a task imbued with great responsibility; dictionaries still carry a certain authority in the eyes of their readership, even if they don’t actually indicate if words are "correct" or “moral."