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Ready to spark something? Download the Sims 4 and play for free. You're listening to Away With Words, I'm Grant Barrett.

Welcome to a special mini-cast.

Today we're talking to Jan Freeman.

She is a language columnist for the Boston Globe and author of the new book Ambrose Bierces's

write it right the celebrated cynics language peves deciphered, appraised and

annotated for 21st century readers. What a heck of a subtitle Jan.. Yes, well, we need to have long subtitles these days to tell you exactly what the book is about,

because it's a little bit complicated in this case.

Who was Ambrose Spears? Why do we care about his usage advice?

I'm not sure we care that much about his usage advice,

except if he reflects his time 100 years ago in America.

But a lot of people care a lot about Ambrose, who was quite a well-known

journalist in his time.

He's the author of The Devil's Dictionary, which last I knew had a fan club on Facebook calling him the baddest

asked lexicographer who ever lived and that book as his fans know is full of

definitions like love a temporary insanity curable by marriage now

Bierce was also a young civil war veteran he wrote a lot of stories about the

civil war and some very twilight zone stories too, which people

consider early science fiction or fantasy.

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