Ammon Shea and a Friendly Game of Dictionary

The Lexicographer and the Madman
By Gregory Cowles

When I asked Ammon Shea, the man who read the O.E.D., if he wanted to play a game of Dictionary sometime, he did me the favor of pretending I was sane.

“Do you have a specific dictionary in mind?” he wondered. “I would prefer Webster’s Third, if only because of all the bad blood between that edition and The Times.”

Bad blood?

Read the rest, including a retelling of several rounds of the game, on Paper Cuts.