Erin McKean
Erin McKean
Erin McKeanis an American lexicographer, based in the San Francisco Bay Area...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionEditor
CountryUnited States of America
believe conscious demands recycle
I think we would all like to believe that every new event demands a new word. But we're environmentally conscious with our words. We recycle words we've got.
people
What I'm interested in is how people are reading and writing English.
restore using verb
We've been using 'rejuvenate,' meaning to restore youth, to make young again, as a verb for at least 200 years.
annoy dictionary guaranteed habit starting
If anything is guaranteed to annoy a lexicographer, it is the journalistic habit of starting a story with a dictionary definition.
ideally information word
Ideally my goal is, before I die, to have some information about every word that's ever been used in print.
bad jargon people shortcut
People say jargon is a bad thing, but it's really a shortcut vocabulary professionals use to understand one another.
nice way remember
Language is a nice way to remember things.
serendipity difficult findings
Serendipity is when you find things you weren't looking for because finding what you are looking for is so damned difficult.
nice littles being-nice
You can weaponize nice... Being nice can make you be a little underestimated.
few good publicity ways
There are very few good ways to get publicity for a dictionary.
donuts everybody mean promoted synergy twice
If you're talking about how you promoted synergy in an organization, that could mean you just got everybody together for donuts twice a week.
happen intended uniforms
Uniforms are intended to make the wearer look as strong as possible. Soldiers could fight in leotards, but that's never going to happen because leotards aren't intimidating.
deeply easily english finds motivated personal tend
Objections to verbification in English tend to be motivated by personal taste, not clarity. Verbed words are usually easily understood. When a word like 'friend' is declared not a verb, the problem isn't that it's confusing; it's that the protester finds it deeply annoying.
chance couple mental refreshed rested visit
For me, conferences are like little mental vacations: a chance to go visit an interesting place for a couple of days, and come back rested and refreshed with new ideas and perspectives.