SHE'S a published novelist and the former editor of the New Oxford American Dictionary. However, the passion that American "dictionary evangelist" Erin McKean has for words stretches far beyond the realms of paper.
McKean is the founder of online dictionary Wordnik, which allows word lovers to get together and identify words not just by the meaning, but by the context and the people that use them. And, importantly, it can be updated quicker and more inclusively than a regular dictionary.
Her presentation at Thinking Digital revolved around the fact that digital technology can give users “a new perspective on knowledge”.
Speaking to The Journal, she said: “The English language is a fantastic generator of new words and because of the democratisation of publishing, more and more people can have their words heard by bigger audiences.
“The human curiosity about what people are saying and what they mean is deep, and it’s not something that dictionaries do very well. We’ve been trained to say ‘what does this mean’, but that’s the bare minimum. It’s about finding out what the words are like, and getting to the people on the other side of the word.”
Wordnik emerged in 2009, and allows users to access words in various contexts to get a better understanding of what they mean to people, as well as submitted lists, pronunciations, images and statistics.
McKean said: “Context is everything. If you meet two guys in tuxedos, how do you know which one’s the waiter and which one’s James Bond?
“Even if they’re both carrying Martinis, you don’t know until one of them pulls out the gun.”
In a world where comments and forwarding have changed how we interact with text, McKean believes there is even more opportunity to put words under the microscope, track their history and revel in them.
She said: “Language is the best technology that anyone’s ever come up with. It makes everything possible and never fails to surprise or delight.
“We don’t really stop and think about how much we do with it every day. We take it for granted, like a fish with water.”
