Erin's column, Safire "electionating"

[Bapopik at AOL.COM]

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/14/magazine/14ONLANGUAGE.html?pagewanted=2

ON LANGUAGE

Lexicographer

By ERIN McKEAN

Published: November 14, 2004

I've wanted to be a lexicographer since I was 8.

(...)

I polled, in a highly unscientific manner, my colleagues in the Dictionary
Society of North America, and I found that lexicographers in this country do
have a common qualification for the jobs they hold or have held: they have all
been lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time. Several
lexicographers, including Wendalyn Nichols and Enid Pearsons (both formerly of Random
House), Orin Hargraves (a freelance lexicographer who has worked for Oxford and
other houses) and Debbie Sawczak (formerly of the Canadian Gage dictionaries)
answered newspaper ads that in essence said, "Lexicographers Wanted: Will
Train." Joanne Despres (senior editor at Merriam-Webster), Ed Gates (who also
worked at Merriam on the Third International), Daniel Barron (late of Longman) and
Peter Gilliver (of the O.E.D.) also responded to job postings, some literally
put up on bulletin boards. The late, much-missed Rima McKinzey (a freelance
"pronster," also known as a pronunciation editor, or orthoepist) was
recommended for a job at Random House by one of her professors, Arthur Bronstein; Steve
Kleinedler (senior editor at American Heritage) took a class from Richard
Spears (a slang lexicographer) at Northwestern University, which led to freelance
work. Robert Parks (of Wordsmyth) taught a Politics and Language class and was
called in as a consultant for a company making electronic dictionaries in
Japan while there on a Fulbright; Robert Wachal (who has edited a dictionary of
abbreviations and acronyms for American Heritage) taught linguistics and was
"scouted" by a publisher while giving a paper at a Dictionary Society meeting.
Grant Barrett, a journalist, volunteered to be the Web master for the American
Dialect Society, which led indirectly to his becoming the project editor for
the Historical Dictionary of American Slang.

(...)

However accidental the beginning of their careers as lexicographers, once
well dug in, most never want to do anything else. They find, as Thomas Paikeday
(editor of The User's Webster dictionary) put it, that "lexicography suits my
scholarship, skills and even my temperament." In the dozen years that I have
been working on dictionaries, the suspicions of my 8-year-old self have only
been confirmed: it's the best job in the world, and well worth trying for.

Erin McKean is the editor in chief, U.S. dictionaries, for Oxford University
Press, and the editor of Verbatim: The Language Quarterly. Last week, William
Safire says he was ''electionating.''