The once and future dictionary

On Point with Meghna Chakrabarti

WBUR

Talk Show, Daily News, News, Npr, On Point, Daily

4.2 • 3.5K Ratings

🗓️ 12 December 2025

⏱️ 37 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The quest to define and canonize new words in American English is as old as the country itself. In the new book "Unabridged: the thrill of (and threat to) the modern dictionary," author Stefan Fatsis explores how that quest has changed in the age of the internet.

Transcript

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0:36.6	University that explores questions like,
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0:46.9	Listen, wherever you get your podcasts.
0:50.6	WBUR Podcasts, Boston.
1:01.5	This is On Point. I'm Megna Chakrabardi.
1:08.8	Stefan Fatsis is a longtime belletterist at Slate, the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times. For the superannuated among us, you will also know him from his many ingresses on NPR.
1:15.0	He has penned many perspicacious monographs, including word freak, heartbreak, triumph, genius, and obsession in the world of competitive Scrabble players,
1:24.5	and few seconds of panic a sports writer plays in the NFL.
1:29.3	At his pertinacious core, Stefan is a salamandrous devotee of lexicography.
1:36.0	Ever since his Gallic youth, Stefan has whiteacted himself to the tome to which he is most sagaciously affixed,
1:42.0	the lexicographer's vast annual compendium.
1:47.0	The Dictionary.
1:48.5	And most recently, Stefan has published unabridged the thrill of and threat to the modern dictionary.
	...

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