Erin Mckean once said, “If you love a word, it becomes real.” With this hard-to-believe phrase as her philosophy the former editor of The New Oxford American Dictionary, Mckean launched a new concept that redefines lexicography. She discussed her thoughts on how the narrowness of print dictionaries in a March 2007 TEDtalk video lecture for the popular ideas blog,TED. The former dictionary editor said she no longer wanted to be a “police offer” keeping bad words out, but rather a “fisherman” searching for a bit of everything.
When her website, Wordnik, launched on Leap Day 2008, Mckean began her foray into the deep blue sea of words. Free from discrimination, words like ‘astereognosis’: the inability to estimate the size, shape and weight of objects by touch, and homie, are able to exist on the same website without fear. It is the people’s love of words that make them words—whether Webster’s Dictionary agrees, or not. More than a dictionary, Wordnik offers definitions, recorded pronunciations, related words, statistics and examples of usage, including random tweets. Just post your favorite word – made-up or real – and let the mystery unfold. AP
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