Erin McKean, editor and lexicographer for the New Oxford American Dictionary, tells Google the ten things she wishes people knew about dictionaries, how people go about making new words, and how lexicographers use Google.
Erin McKean has wanted to be a lexicographer since she was eight years old. She has a BA and an MA in Linguistics from the University of Chicago, where she wrote her master’s thesis on the treatment of phrasal verbs in children’s dictionaries. While at the University of Chicago, she worked as a volunteer at the Chicago Assyrian Dictionary. Before OUP, Erin spent eight years at Scott Foresman, where she worked on the Thorndike Barnhart children’s dictionaries. Erin is a member of the…