
Sign up to save your podcasts
Or


The Remnant is proud to bestow its newly formed, not-really-endowed chair of lexicography upon Scrabble legend and word nerd Stefan Fatsis. For his first act as chair, Stefan joins Jonah Goldberg to talk about the role of professional lexicographers, whether dictionaries should be normative or descriptive, how dictionaries handle controversial words, and the threat that the digital age poses not only to the dictionary, but to knowledge itself.
Show Notes:
—Unabridged The Thrill of and Threat to the Modern Dictionary
—Stefan in Slate: “What Does 'Unabridged' Even Mean Anymore?”
—John McWhorter’s most recent Remnant appearance
—Fatsis’ book on competitive Scrabble
—Mencken - The American Language: An Inquiry Into the Development of English in the United States
The Remnant is a production of The Dispatch, a digital media company covering politics, policy, and culture from a non-partisan, conservative perspective. To access all of The Dispatch’s offerings—including access to all of Jonah’s G-File newsletters—click here. If you’d like to remove all ads from your podcast experience, consider becoming a premium Dispatch member by clicking here.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
By The Dispatch4.7
65246,524 ratings
The Remnant is proud to bestow its newly formed, not-really-endowed chair of lexicography upon Scrabble legend and word nerd Stefan Fatsis. For his first act as chair, Stefan joins Jonah Goldberg to talk about the role of professional lexicographers, whether dictionaries should be normative or descriptive, how dictionaries handle controversial words, and the threat that the digital age poses not only to the dictionary, but to knowledge itself.
Show Notes:
—Unabridged The Thrill of and Threat to the Modern Dictionary
—Stefan in Slate: “What Does 'Unabridged' Even Mean Anymore?”
—John McWhorter’s most recent Remnant appearance
—Fatsis’ book on competitive Scrabble
—Mencken - The American Language: An Inquiry Into the Development of English in the United States
The Remnant is a production of The Dispatch, a digital media company covering politics, policy, and culture from a non-partisan, conservative perspective. To access all of The Dispatch’s offerings—including access to all of Jonah’s G-File newsletters—click here. If you’d like to remove all ads from your podcast experience, consider becoming a premium Dispatch member by clicking here.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

4,291 Listeners

1,845 Listeners

1,513 Listeners

2,891 Listeners

1,398 Listeners

5,169 Listeners

4,898 Listeners

2,834 Listeners

734 Listeners

590 Listeners

3,953 Listeners

3,355 Listeners

8,518 Listeners

1,095 Listeners

216 Listeners