My Humanities essay on the rise of cool, the American slang term that took on new life beginning in the…
The Story of Ain’t in NYT Acrostic
I am not an acrostic afficianado, but was delighted to learn there is a type of crossword that is used…
So Very Very on The Story of Ain’t
The literary and cultural blog So Very Very published a delightful review of The Story of Ain’t, one of my…
Skinner on Redskin
I wrote an article about the history of the term redskin for Lexicon Valley, the language blog on Slate. (Lexicon…
London Times calls The Story of Ain’t “implausibly entertaining”
“A book about a dictionary may sound a dry read. I’ve found one that’s implausibly entertaining. It’s a recent American…
The Story of Ain’t in the Christian Science Monitor
Ruth Walker compares The Story of Ain’t to The Professor and the Madman, and quotes PJ O’Rourke’s words of praise…
What Mark Liberman Said on Language Log
“I’m happy to have this occasion to post an enthusiastic recommendation: You should immediately run out (virtually or physically) and…
On the Role of Dictionaries in NYT
When it happens I feel as if I have stepped into a Far Side cartoon. I am a magazine editor,…
New York Times Editors’ Choice
The Times called The Story of Ain’t “an engrossing account of the continuing ruckus over Webster’s Third New International Dictionary.”
Visiting Chestertown, Maryland
Last week I drove to historic Chestertown to talk about The Story of Ain’t with a nonfiction reading group at…
David Skinner 