Dictionary Days

Browse Return to Previous Page       Related Subjects All Subjects Literary NOT Theory Literary Studies

by Ilan Stavans

Graywolf Press

Due/Published April 2005, 256 pages, cloth

ISBN 1555974198

A dictionary, despite its heroic effort to pin down language, is destined for failure the moment a single word is printed; language, with its eternal mutations, is forever uncontainable. In "Dictionary Days, award-winning essayist Ilan Stavans explores our very human need to "seize upon the meaning of a word." Owner of hundreds of dictionaries, he follows a fascinating, zigzagging history of lexicography across many languages, including English, French, Spanish, German, Arabic, Hebrew, Latin, and Cyrillic. Throughout his journey, Stavans spots strange meaning inconsistencies, uncovers unusual origins, and shares extraordinary and often hilarious anecdotes.

With a dazzling knowledge of dictionaries through the ages, matched by a lively wit, Stavans reaches far beyond the margin of the page and pays a worthy tribute to a discipline that is at once inspiring and maddening. "For dictionaries are oracles: nothing is outside them--except the impossible."