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Most consumers don't have a good metric for deciding on whether the dictionary they want to use is a good one... so they flip the book over, then go to the back, and it says, 'Over 250,000 entries.' And they go, 'Great, this dictionary must be awesome!'
— Erin McKean
Tags: book, go, great, good

Other Quotes by "Erin McKean"

We've been using 'rejuvenate,' meaning to restore youth, to make young again, as a verb for at least 200 years.
— Erin McKean
Tags: make, young, meaning, youth
Almost any word can be drafted to serve as a verb, even words we think of as eternal and unchanging, stuck in their more traditional roles.
— Erin McKean
Tags: serve, more, think, words
All language is a popularity contest.
— Erin McKean
Tags: contest, popularity, language
The use of food metaphors is really well established English... Somebody is a peach, a hot tamale.
— Erin McKean
Tags: use, well, hot, food
Objections to verbification in English tend to be motivated by personal taste, not clarity. Verbed words are usually easily understood. When a word like 'friend' is declared not a verb, the problem isn't that it's confusing; it's that the protester finds it deeply annoying.
— Erin McKean
Tags: problem, like, friend, words
View More by "Erin McKean"
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