num_pages: 384
description: Can you drink a glass of balderdash? What do you call the part of a dog's back it can't scratch? And if serendipitously you find yourself in Serendip then where exactly are you?The answers to all of these questions -- and a great many more -- can be found in the pages of the Oxford English Dictionary  the definitive record of the English language. And there is no better guide to the dictionary's many wonderments than the former chief editor of the OED  John Simpson. Simpson spent almost four decades of his life immersed in the intricacies of our language and guides us through its history with charmingly laconic wit. In The Word Detective  an intensely personal memoir and a joyful celebration of English he weaves a story of how words come into being (and sometimes disappear) how culture shapes the language we use and how technology has transformed not only the way we speak and write but also how words are made.Throughout he enlivens his narrative with lively excavations and investigations of individual words -- from deadline to online and back to 101 (yes it's a word) -- all the while reminding us that the seemingly mundane words (can you name the four different meanings of ma ?) are often the most interesting ones. But Simpson also reminds us of the limitations of language: spending his days in the OED 's house of words his family at home is forced to confront the challenges of wordlessness.A brilliant and deeply humane expedition through the world of words The Word Detective will delight and inspire any lover of language.
language: English
title: The Word Detective: Searching for the Meaning of It All at the Oxford English Dictionary
publisher: Basic Books