Kory Stamper Quotes

I think when dictionaries define words, there's a sort of hair-splitting that to most people doesn't make any sense, which is we're not describing what a thing is.

Lexicographers may be nerds who don't like human contact, but we're still people.

Whenever you try and simplify how people speak, it's just hard to squish them into a simple rule. Language doesn't work that way.

Words have always been political, and that means that, in many people's minds, dictionaries are political. Because that's what dictionaries do: they do words.

We want to emulate the educated class, even if we don't think of educated people as a class these days.

ALL words are made-up: Do you think we find them fully formed on the ocean floor, or mine from them in some remote part of Wales?