In “Unabridged,” Stefan Fatsis explores what words make the official grade. By Dan Piepenbring Dan Piepenbring is the co-author of “Chaos: Charles Manson, the CIA, and the Secret History of the ...

Merriam-Webster will publish its 12th edition next month. The reference tool will include 5,000 new words and phrases, including “cold brew,” “farm-to-table,” “rizz” and “dad bod.” (Brandon Bell/Getty ...

Like Plimpton? You’ll mostly like Plimpton 2.0 Wall Street Journal sportswriter and NPR commentator Stefan Fatsis sets out to personally discover the workings of a militaristic, multimillion-dollar ...

Once, every middle-class home had a piano and a dictionary. The purpose of the piano was to be able to listen to music before phonographs were available and affordable. Later on, it was to torture ...

“The Definition of a Dictionary,” published in Slate on Tuesday, is Stefan Fatsis’ story about the latest, mammoth, digitally-oriented remake of the Merriam-Webster dictionary. Last weekend Stefan ...

In an era of search engines and algorithm-inspired slang, dictionaries can seem like analog relics. But for writer Stefan Fatsis — who spent time working for America’s oldest dictionary publisher, ...

In Stefan Fatsis’s capacious, and at times score-settling, personal history of the reference book, he reveals what the dictionary can still tell us about language in modern life A page taken from the ...