Erin's column, Safire "electionating"

[Thomas Paikeday]

Since even Google asks, Did you mean "electional", "electioning", etc., I
think Safire's assistant may want to answer the question about
"electionating". I for one don't get it, but am curious to learn more.
Perhaps Safire meant to say "electioneering"?

t.m.p.

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Sent: Saturday, November 13, 2004 9:02 PM
Subject: Erin's column, Safire "electionating"


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>
> 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.''
>