A Life in Lexicography
Lexicographer Grant Barrett discusses the history and current state of dictionaries, including the joy of flicking through a dictionary vs the fast return of an online look-up.
Grant Barrett is a lexicographer, linguist, author, editor, founder of Wordnik and Head of Lexicography at Dictionary.com. He also co-hosts A Way With Words, a phone in show about language, which airs coast to coast across the United States.
He and Michael discuss the joy of flicking through a dictionary with friends vs the fast return of an online look-up, the history of dictionaries, and Grant's favourite area of language: sociolinguistics - "where the rubber meets the road", as he puts it.
Producer: Ellie Richold
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- Tue 16 Jan 202416:00BBC Radio 4
- Mon 22 Jan 202423:00BBC Radio 4
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