Editorial Content for Unabridged: The Thrill of (and Threat to) the Modern Dictionary
Contributors
Reviewer (text)
What am I saying here, and how do you know?
For that, we must exclaim, “Thank you, dictionary.”
But even that isn’t quite sufficient.
The meaning of words can change over time. What was once acceptable usage in our grandparents’ day might not be the case anymore. Conversely, who can keep up with the almost daily introduction of new words into our vocabulary? (“6-7” --- chosen by Dictionary.com as their 2025 “Word of the Year” --- I’m looking at you.) Who decides what counts and what doesn’t, and what does that process look like?
"A project like UNABRIDGED easily could have been a heavy, laborious book to get through, but Fatsis...once again combines his penchant for indefatigable research with an approachable style, making each chapter relatable and thought-provoking."
Stefan Fatsis takes on the arduous task in this deep dive into the history of that valued reference work. He channels the likes of George Plimpton as he embeds himself as a “lexicographer-in-training” with Merriam-Webster, rifling through decades-old files, slips and citations to try to get a sense of what goes into the decisions for the way words are defined and presented. The descriptions of the company’s facilities are quaint and reminiscent of old movies like Desk Set and Balls of Fire, where researchers and academics argue about minutiae surrounded by shelves and piles of books in various conditions of (dis)order.
A project like UNABRIDGED easily could have been a heavy, laborious book to get through, but Fatsis --- whose previous works include WORD FREAK and A FEW SECONDS OF PANIC (in which he, like Plimpton, seeks to become a professional football player) --- once again combines his penchant for indefatigable research with an approachable style, making each chapter relatable and thought-provoking.
The chapter on “Slurs,” for example, demonstrates that not everyone thinks about words in the same way; they can differ according to age, gender, race, religion, etc. What was once “just the way people talked” is, in many cases, no longer acceptable, which is why the Washington, DC NFL franchise changed its name from “Redskins” to “Commanders,” to the relief of some people and the consternation of others. Fatsis writes, “[We can’t know the publisher’s] state of mind, his political leanings, or his opinions on the civil rights movement. But [his research] can tell us what he determined was useful in assessing a particular word.”
How much of that should matter to the detectives who decide on these definitions? Should politics play a role, or is that too restrictive? People may not like one word or another, and may even find it offensive. But should that be taken into consideration at the cost of education?
However, it’s more than the theoretical and creative that plays a major part in UNABRIDGED. There’s the practical as well. With the publishing industry in flux over the past decade or so, how can you justify the cost of a book that can run thousands of pages when you simply can go to the internet?
I am the proud owner of a two-volume set, Webster’s Universal Unabridged Dictionary, published in 1936. The pages are yellowed, the spines are cracking, and, sure, there are words that have fallen out of use and obviously new ones that the contributors would never have dreamed of almost 100 years ago. But I find something comforting in it --- something that the internet could never give me.
Strictly speaking, according to WUUD, a dictionary is “a book containing the words of a language…” (my emphasis). For that reason, I pray that Fatsis is wrong when he thinks about the threats to this centuries-old institution.
Teaser
Words are the currency of culture --- and never more than today. From selfie to doomscrolling to rizz, our hyper-connected digital world coins and spreads new words with lightning speed and locks them into mainstream consciousness with unprecedented influence. Journalist and bestselling author Stefan Fatsis embedded as a lexicographer-in-training at America’s most famous dictionary publisher, Merriam-Webster, to learn how words get into the dictionary, where they come from, who decides what they mean, and how we write and think about them. As he recounts in UNABRIDGED, he discovered the history and fascinating subculture of the dictionary and of those who curate and revere “one of the most basic features of our collective humanity.”
Promo
Words are the currency of culture --- and never more than today. From selfie to doomscrolling to rizz, our hyper-connected digital world coins and spreads new words with lightning speed and locks them into mainstream consciousness with unprecedented influence. Journalist and bestselling author Stefan Fatsis embedded as a lexicographer-in-training at America’s most famous dictionary publisher, Merriam-Webster, to learn how words get into the dictionary, where they come from, who decides what they mean, and how we write and think about them. As he recounts in UNABRIDGED, he discovered the history and fascinating subculture of the dictionary and of those who curate and revere “one of the most basic features of our collective humanity.”
About the Book
From the author of the New York Times bestseller WORD FREAK, a vibrant, lively and illuminating journey through the exotic world of Merriam-Webster, dictionaries and language, at a time of rapid-fire change in the way we create, consume, define and use words.
Words are the currency of culture --- and never more than today. From selfie to doomscrolling to rizz, our hyper-connected digital world coins and spreads new words with lightning speed and locks them into mainstream consciousness with unprecedented influence. Journalist and bestselling author Stefan Fatsis embedded as a lexicographer-in-training at America’s most famous dictionary publisher, Merriam-Webster, to learn how words get into the dictionary, where they come from, who decides what they mean, and how we write and think about them. As he recounts in UNABRIDGED, he discovered the history and fascinating subculture of the dictionary and of those who curate and revere “one of the most basic features of our collective humanity.”
Fatsis reveals the little-known story of how the brothers George and Charles Merriam acquired Noah Webster’s original American dictionary and reshaped the business of language forever. Merriam-Webster became America’s most successful and enduring compendium of words, withstanding intense competition and cultural controversies --- only to be threatened by the power of Google and artificial intelligence today.
Delving into Merriam’s legendary archives and parsing its arcane rules, Fatsis learns the painstaking precision required for writing good definitions. He examines how the dictionary has handled the most explosive slurs and the revolutionary change in pronouns. He votes on the annual Word of the Year, travels to the legendary Oxford English Dictionary, and visits the world’s greatest private dictionary collection in a Greenwich Village apartment stuffed with more than 20,000 books. Fatsis demonstrates how words are weaponized in our polarized political culture --- from liberal to woke to DEI --- and, in a time of insurrections and pandemics, how they can be a literal matter of life and death. Along the way, he manages to write a few definitions that crack the code and are enshrined in the pixelated dictionary.
“I fell in love with the dictionary on my eleventh birthday,” Fatsis writes about the full-color college lexicon he received on that day. “The dictionary projects permanence, but the language is Jell-O, slippery and mutable and forever collapsing on itself.” UNABRIDGED takes readers to the heart of an industry in flux, celebrating as it does the sheer thrill and wonder of words.
Audiobook available, read by Kevin R. Free
