Word by Word
Kory Stamper
5 · –
-
The distinction between real defining and lexical defining often sounds like some ass-covering hairsplitting. Lexicographers aren’t saying that the essential nature of love is affection; we’re saying that’s how the word is used. But the speaking, writing public chooses to use the word “love” over “affection” because love signifies something more than affection, doesn’t it? Love has to be different from mere affection. Lexicographers wobble across this tightrope constantly. Yes, it’s true, the thing love is different from the thing affection, but the word “love” has a bunch of different uses that overlap some of the uses of the word “affection.” If you are a philosopher, that answer is unsatisfying, but it’s the best one that a lexicographer can give.
-
The one that every lexicographer offers as proof is “antidisestablishmentarianism.” It’s a word plenty of people are familiar with, but most of our citational evidence for it is in lists of long words, not in running prose, and when it does appear in running prose, it appears in sentences like “ ‘Antidisestablishmentarianism’ is a long word.” When tasked with prying meaning out of a bunch of citations like that, you quickly discover that “antidisestablishmentarianism” is rarely ascribed a meaning in text.
-
A definition begins with what we call the “genus,” the overarching category that describes what, at heart, the “definiendum,” or word being defined, means.
-
English has a lot of synonyms for “fool” or “idiot.” Perhaps you take this to mean that English speakers are mean-spirited; I simply reply that necessity is the mother of invention.
-
“Unless…” almost always marks the beginning of a wild lexical goose chase.