Lexicographer Erin McKean is as cute as a button: there’s simply no other way to describe her. This week the usual suspects at K & A watched her talk about dictionaries: where they come from, where they’re going, and how they’ve changed the English language. In lesser hands it would be a dry topic, but Ms. McKean’s gift for weird metaphors (pork butts and fishermen are two that stand out) and wild accusations (”Well, I blame the Queen”) made this talk a treat to listen to. At one point she claimed that several of her best friends were books, which I fully relate to (Jack Kerouac’s Dharma Bums and J.D. Salinger’s Frankie and Zooey), and I poked around the office to find out what kind of riff raff the other rewriters and instructors hang out with.
“Life and How to Survive It, by John Cleese and Robin Skynner. It’s written by the Monty Python guy. He was in therapy for a while. Robin Skynner was his therapist.” —Helen Lewis
“Any kind of reference book … An encyclopedia.” —Tracy Silvasti
“How to Write and Publish a Scientific Paper, by Robert A. Day. I think YOU should read this. It’s what made me who I am today. … Well, actually. Maybe it’s All I Really Need to Know I Learned from Watching Star Trek, by Dave Marinaccio.” —Arnold Fisher
“Well it’s a bit of a toss-up, isn’t it, between Line by Line, by Claire Kehrwald Cook and that Grammar Bugs book. How could you possibly choose between the two?” —Jonathan Bell