{"product_id":"9780062345752","title":"The Story of Ain't","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e“It takes true brilliance to lift the arid tellings of lexicographic fussing into the readable realm of the thriller and the bodice-ripper….David Skinner has done precisely this, taking a fine story and honing it to popular perfection.”\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Simon Winchester, New York Times bestselling author of The Professor and the Madman\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe captivating, delightful, and surprising story of Merriam Webster’s Third Edition, the dictionary that provoked America’s greatest language controversy. In those days, Webster’s Second was the great gray eminence of American dictionaries, with 600,000 entries and numerous competitors but no rivals. It served as the all-knowing guide to the world of grammar and information, a kind of one-stop reference work.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn 1961, Webster’s Third came along and ignited an unprecedented controversy in America’s newspapers, universities, and living rooms. The new dictionary’s editor, Philip Gove, had overhauled Merriam’s long held authoritarian principles to create a reference work that had “no traffic with…artificial notions of correctness or authority. It must be descriptive not prescriptive.” Correct use was determined by how the language was actually spoken, and not by “notions of correctness” set by the learned few. Dwight MacDonald, a formidable American critic and writer, emerged as Webster’s Third’s chief nemesis when in the pages of the New Yorker he likened the new dictionary to the end of civilization..\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe Story of Ain’t describes a great cultural shift in America, when the voice of the masses resounded in the highest halls of culture, when the division between highbrow and lowbrow was inalterably blurred, when the humanities and its figureheads were shunted aside by advances in scientific thinking. All the while, Skinner treats the reader to the chippy banter of the controversy’s key players. A dictionary will never again seem as important as it did in 1961.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cb\u003eThe Dictionary Wars:\u003c\/b\u003e Discover how the 1961 publication of \u003ci\u003eWebster’s Third\u003c\/i\u003e sparked a national firestorm, pitting traditionalists against linguistic reformers in a battle for the soul of the language.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cb\u003eDescriptive vs. Prescriptive:\u003c\/b\u003e Explore the explosive central debate: should a dictionary dictate correct usage, or should it simply describe how people actually talk? The answer would change lexicography forever.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cb\u003eA Cast of Unforgettable Characters:\u003c\/b\u003e Meet dictionary editor Philip Gove, the quiet revolutionary, and his brilliant nemesis, \u003ci\u003eNew Yorker\u003c\/i\u003e critic Dwight Macdonald, whose fiery essays likened the new dictionary to the end of civilization.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cb\u003eThe Blurring of American Culture:\u003c\/b\u003e Witness a pivotal moment in American history, as the lines between highbrow and lowbrow blur and the very definition of ‘correctness’ is challenged in the pages of a dictionary.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e","brand":"David Skinner","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46922417832085,"sku":"9780062345752","price":8.99,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0484\/3175\/9509\/files\/9780062345752_4091593b-81be-4ce8-bdd0-6e92caa051b0.jpg?v=1776889914","url":"https:\/\/harpercollins.com.au\/products\/9780062345752","provider":"HarperCollins AU","version":"1.0","type":"link"}