‘Aquavit,’ ‘Zebroid,’ and ‘Haole’ | Interview: Stefan Fatsis

The Remnant with Jonah Goldberg

The Dispatch

News, Politics

4.7 • 6.6K Ratings

🗓️ 18 February 2026

⏱️ 69 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

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

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	This episode of The Remnant is brought to you by our friends at the Pacific Legal Foundation.
0:05.9	PLF is a national nonprofit law firm with more than 200 active lawsuits representing Americans
0:12.7	hurt by government overreach. Across the country, PLF is fighting to free up more land and resources.
0:18.5	They represent a California family who have oil reserves
0:21.5	but can't drill because of a state ban. Alaska lumber companies that can't operate because of a
0:27.3	federal rule and a retired pediatrician in Florida whose property was wrongly declared a wetland.
0:34.4	And they represent all their clients free of charge because they believe all Americans should live fearlessly in pursuit of happiness.
0:41.5	If you agree, check out the Pacific Legal Foundation at pacificlegal.org slash flagship. Ladies and gentlemen, can I please have your attention.
1:08.9	Can you diggers? Can you digger?
1:21.0	Greetings, dear listeners, this is Jonah Goldberg, host of the Remnant podcast, brought to you by the Dispatch and Dispatch Media.
1:22.9	I'm extremely excited about today's guest, a first timer.
1:26.6	We are continuing our long slide into counter programming,
1:31.0	so crazy things in the news are not going to show up all that much in today's episode,
1:35.2	and that's fine by me.
1:37.3	Today's guest is Stefan Fatsis, author of Unabridged,
1:40.8	The Thrill of and Threat to the Modern the modern dictionary, which came out last October.
1:46.8	He's also written a bunch of other books, a few seconds of panic about life in the NFL, word freak
1:52.2	about his days in the cutthroat business of competitive scrabble, and wild and outside about
1:57.9	minor league baseball. Stephanie used to co-host Slate's weekly sports podcast, hang up and listen.
2:05.6	And he was a sports commentator on NPR's All Things Considered.
2:09.3	Many of you probably heard him there.
2:11.1	Longtime staff reporter of Wall Street Journal, all that kind of stuff.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The Dispatch, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of The Dispatch and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.