Erin McKean
Erin McKean
Erin McKeanis an American lexicographer, based in the San Francisco Bay Area...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionEditor
CountryUnited States of America
limit number
You can limit the number of invitations to an in-person fashion show, but you can't police the Internet.
almost drafted eternal serve
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.
chance couple mental refreshed rested visit
For me, conferences are like little mental vacations: a chance to go visit an interesting place for a couple of days, and come back rested and refreshed with new ideas and perspectives.
deeply easily english finds motivated personal tend
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.
happen intended uniforms
Uniforms are intended to make the wearer look as strong as possible. Soldiers could fight in leotards, but that's never going to happen because leotards aren't intimidating.
donuts everybody mean promoted synergy twice
If you're talking about how you promoted synergy in an organization, that could mean you just got everybody together for donuts twice a week.
bad jargon people shortcut
People say jargon is a bad thing, but it's really a shortcut vocabulary professionals use to understand one another.
few good publicity ways
There are very few good ways to get publicity for a dictionary.
choose flannel hindsight looking notice pictures ripped time word year
It's difficult to choose a Word of the Year in the year that you're in. It's one of those things that hindsight makes more apparent. It's like looking at pictures from 10 years ago, and you notice the flannel and the ripped jeans. At the time, it didn't look to you like a real fashion trend.
exactly wishing
Twitter is like overhearing people's conversations, which is exactly what dictionary editors have been wishing we could do for years.
creativity ecosystem engine entire extend interact platform power showing signs sites twitter
Twitter has already birthed an entire ecosystem of other sites that extend its power or interact with it. But Twitter isn't just a platform for technological innovation: It's showing signs as an engine of creativity for the language, too.
dictionary learned looking love
Most of the words you know and love and use every day are not words you learned by looking them up in a dictionary and reading a definition.
dictionary print thousands
There are hundreds of thousands of words that aren't in any print dictionary today... because there's no space for all of them.
listening mimi want
if you want someone to stop listening to you go ahead and yell. If you want them to listen to every word, whisper. -Mimi