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Holding Details

Barcode30293102243024
StatusIn Processing
LocationClark County
Call No423.028 Fats
TitleUnabridged : the thrill of (and threat to) the modern dictionary / Stefan Fatsis.
AuthorFatsis, Stefan, author.
CollectionNF
Total Circ0
NumReserves0
Reserve Item

Copies

LocationBarcodeCall NoCreated OnIssue NameCirc StatusTemp Loc
Clark County30293102243024423.028 Fats12/2/2025 In Processing 

Catalog Details

International Standard Book Number 9780802165831 electronic book
International Standard Book Number 9780802165824 (hardcover)
International Standard Book Number 0802165826 (hardcover)
Personal Name Fatsis, Stefan, author.
Title Statement Unabridged : the thrill of (and threat to) the modern dictionary / Stefan Fatsis.
Edition Statement First edition.
Edition Statement First Grove Atlantic hardcover edition.
Production, Publication, Distribution, Manufacture, and Copyright Notice New York : Atlantic Monthly Press, 2025.
Physical Description xi, 397 pages ; 24 cm.
Bibliography, Etc. Note Includes bibliographical references (pages 377-382) and index.
Formatted Contents Note Train -- History -- Business -- Define -- Corpus -- Neologism -- Slip -- Collection -- Slur -- Pronoun -- Entry -- Social media -- News -- Artificial intelligence -- Future -- End.
Summary, Etc. "Words are the currency of culture - and never more than today. From selfie to doomscrolling to rizz, our hyper-connected digital world coins and spreads new words with lightning speed and locks them into mainstream consciousness with unprecedented influence. Journalist and bestselling author Stefan Fatsis embedded as a lexicographer-in-training at America's most famous dictionary publisher, Merriam-Webster, to learn how words get into the dictionary, where they come from, who decides what they mean, and how we write and think about them. In so doing, as he recounts in Unabridged, he discovered the history and fascinating subculture of the dictionary and of those who curate and revere "one of the most basic features of our collective humanity." Fatsis reveals the little-known story of how the brothers George and Charles Merriam acquired Noah Webster's original American dictionary and reshaped the business of language forever. Merriam-Webster became America's most successful and enduring compendium of words, withstanding intense competition and cultural controversies - only to be threatened by the power of Google and artificial intelligence today. Delving into Merriam's legendary archives and parsing its arcane rules, Fatsis learns the painstaking precision required for writing good definitions. He examines how the dictionary has handled the most explosive slurs and the revolutionary change in pronouns. He votes on the annual Word of the Year, travels to the legendary Oxford English Dictionary, and visits the world's greatest private dictionary collection in a Greenwich Village apartment stuffed with more than 20,000 books. Fatsis demonstrates how words are weaponized in our polarized political culture-from liberal to woke to DEI-and, in a time of insurrections and pandemics, how they can be a literal matter of life and death. Along the way, he manages to write a few definitions that crack the code and are enshrined in the pixelated dictionary."-- Provided by publisher.
Subject-Corporate Name Merriam-Webster, Inc. History.
Subject Added Entry - Topical Term Encyclopedias and dictionaries History and criticism.
Subject Added Entry - Topical Term English language Lexicography History.

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