Notes from 57th International STC Conference
Dallas, Texas, May 2-5, 2010

Keynote Address:
The Dictionary is Dead: Long Live the Dictionary

Erin McKean

A self-professed “dictionary evangelist,” McKean was most recently Chief Consulting Editor, American Dictionaries for Oxford University Press, and was the editor-in-chief of the New Oxford American Dictionary, 2e. Currently, she is the founder and CEO of the new online dictionary Wordnik (www.wordnik.com). McKean also periodically writes for the Boston Globe’s “The Word” column.

Session Description: Are printed dictionaries headed for extinction? Not if dictionary “guru” Erin McKean, this year’s STC Honorary Fellow and conference keynote speaker, has anything to say about it! In this entertaining presentation, she provided a compelling argument that dictionaries—printed and online – still play a key part in a communicator’s “tool kit.”

• When they learn McKean is a dictionary editor, people seem to go out of their way to explain how much they don’t use dictionaries any more.
• She sees a dictionary as a tool rather than a book.
• For 400 years (since 1604), dictionaries have been books. The editor of the first dictionary had to explain alphabetization to his users.
• A dictionary is like Cliffs Notes; you use it when you haven’t done the reading to develop your vocabulary.
• Ultimately, people make words “happen” – a fundamental principle of linguistics. Some words “stick”; others don’t.
• Quotations that place words in context are the hallmark of the Oxford English Dictionary. This requires very skillful distillation on the editor’s part.
• Show, don’t tell. She gave the verbal definition of a feather as an example – someone who had never seen a feather would not be able to picture it based on a complex verbal description.
• Brevity is a guiding principle in writing dictionary definitions, yet it can also create a problem via critical omissions. Focusing on the “what” of a word may not convey its essence. She used “tuxedo” as an example; the context of a formal occasion is essential to an understanding of the word. Use the 5W/H.
• The most common word error a writer makes is using a word he/she doesn’t really understand in context; like pulling words from a thesaurus.
• Writing an abstract can be more difficult than writing the original content; shorter is harder.
• Some lexicographers claim “it takes years of training and practice for a lexicographer to be able to encapsulate this meaning accurately in a single sentence.” McKean challenged this assertion as arbitrary and unworkable. She also said it doesn’t take years of training.
• Another myth she debunks is that of the dictionary as “the great authority.” McKean claims that the less authority you have the louder you have to be.
• Traditional lexicographers, having built their careers on density of writing and “I told you so” authority, have resisted “out-of-the-box” lexicographic approaches.
• Building a dictionary in wiki fashion (e.g., Wikipedia) creates the opposite problem; if anybody can contribute examples, synonyms, contextual clues, etc., you have the opposite problem: complexity and contradictions that can prevent clarity.