Bonus 46: Q&A with lexicographer Emily Brewster of Merriam-Webster

How do lexicographers make the decision to add new words or meanings to their dictionaries? What makes a word easy or difficult to define? What's the research process like for finding out the origins of words? What up and coming words are lexicographers currently keeping an eye on? 

In this bonus episode of Lingthusiasm, Gretchen and Lauren get enthusiastic about the process of making dictionaries, posing your patron questions to lexicographer Emily Brewster of Merriam-Webster. We also talk about how lexicography has changed since dictionaries went online and in the era of social media, and the extremely esoteric process of getting lexicography jobs. 

This is our first bonus episode where we've done a Q&A from patrons with a guest -- let us know what you think! Are there other linguistically-relevant occupations that you'd be interested in us trying to find someone to ask questions of? Thanks to everyone in the Lingthusiasm Discord for asking such great questions! (You can keep an eye on the #ama-questions channel for any future guests.)  

Announcements:
Crash Course Linguistics videos are available now and coming out weekly! Keep an eye out for them around 2pm North American Eastern Time on Fridays for the rest of 2020 (except a few holiday Fridays) and into early 2021. If you want to get an email each week with some further reading and practice exercises on each topic, you can also check out the companion issues of Mutual Intelligibility. We also have a Crash Course channel in the Lingthusiasm Discord to chat about each episode! (As well as many other fun channels if you haven't joined the Discord yet!)

Here are the links mentioned in this episode:

• Emily Brewster on Twitter 
• Word Matters podcast from Merriam-Webster 
• Merriam-Webster 
• Lindamood-Bell Learning Processes 
• Someone asked about the book Frindle -- Emily hadn't read it, so she couldn't rate it for accuracy, but both Lauren and Gretchen really like it so we've now recommended it for whenever she needs to explain her job to kids

A further update from after this episode was recorded: 

Guerric Haché (they/he): When it comes to modern slang, there's been increasing awareness that many new slang terms in English originate in minority populations, such as the black population in the United States, and that these origins are often obscured in popular discourse. How does awareness of these sociolinguistic patterns affect the search for a word's origins or lineage (if at all), and to what extent is it within the lexicographer's or dictionary's role to inform about the cultural and subcultural context of the origins of a new term?

From Emily Brewster: Concerning Guerric Hache's excellent question, I'm wishing I'd thought of the treatment of woke that we give at m-w.com: https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/woke-meaning-origin. The dictionary itself is not limited to its entries anymore; with entries easily linked to articles, we're able to provide in-depth treatments that can address a term's origin more fully than a straight etymology. In this case, the article preceded the word's entry into the dictionary (it was a "Words We're Watching" piece), but the article now functions as background on the word's development. This kind of supplemental information is a relatively new part of our work, and I think it's really exciting. As for sociolinguistic patterns affecting the search for a word's origin or lineage, those patterns have always existed and so have always been part of defining and etymological research.

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You can listen to this episode on this page, via the Patreon RSS or download the mp3. A transcript of this episode is available as a Google Doc. Lingthusiasm is also on Facebook, Tumblr, and Twitter. Email us at contact [at] lingthusiasm [dot] com or chat to us on the Patreon page. Gretchen is on Twitter as @GretchenAMcC and blogs at AllThingsLinguistic. Lauren is on Twitter as @superlinguo and blogs at Superlinguo.

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Lingthusiasm is created by Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne. Our senior producer is Claire Gawne, our editorial producer is Sarah Dopierala, and our music is ‘Ancient City’ by The Triangles