The New York Times Dictionary of Misunderstood, Misused, & Mispronounced Words [Hardcover]

I have to say - when I found this book lying around at my parents' place, I never thought I'd pick it up and start reading it. I mean, it's a dictionary for goodness sake! But when I got stuck looking up a word that didn't appear in my regular dictionary, I picked up this little oddity. And trust me, oddity is the right word.

This book had some of the strangest words I'd ever seen, right alongside words I used every day. Luckily, for most of the words I already knew in there, I was using them correctly, but every once in a while I would find something that I'd used often, but used completely incorrectly! The title is definitely not a misnomer.

It's a scary thought, but once I started searching through this thing, I found that I could not put it down. It's a load of fun using it for Balderdash words, and it really is quite informative. If you're stuck on an essay and need a few synonyms, or you just want to make George Orwell turn over in his grave, this book is a must-have.

Honestly, it's a first-rate piece of work!

This book consists of 377 pages of definitions and pronunciations. There are roughly 30-40 words per page, or something on the order of 11,000-15,000 words.

By far the most common entries are words with a specific, well-defined meaning, but which are unlikely to be encountered in everyday life. They are words used in specialized fields, such as medicine, law, chemistry and biology. For example, "Ordovician" is defined as

"Relating to an early period of the Paleozoic era . . .

occurring 440 to 500 million years ago."

This little factoid is useless for almost everyone (the exceptions being scientists who study the Earth's biogeochemical evolution) and really has no place in a dictionary for popular use. Unfortunately, it is typical of the book as a whole.

As an aside, note that the given dates are wrong (the Ordovician is dated from 439 to 495 million years ago), and that the suggested pronunciation is substandard (it should be "veesh," not "vish").

The title and subtitle of the book (Misunderstood, Misused and Mispronounced Words; Words we know until somebody asks us what they mean) are misleading. They imply a dictionary of words you might have trouble with in ordinary conversation. The book contains no such list.

For example, what does "ironic" mean? A lot of people have trouble defining this word. Ironically, "irony" is not included in this book.

How about "misused" words? The word "beg," as in "to beg the question," is frequently misused as a synonym for "raise." Actually it is a synonym for "avoid." "Begging the question" is the logical error of assuming the very thing that you are trying to prove. Unfortunately, the book will not help you here; the word "beg" is not included.

How about "mispronounced" words? A famous example is George Bush's repeated mispronunciation of "nuclear" as "nook-yoo-ler." The book recommends a two-syllable pronunciation ("noo-clear") rather than the correct three-syllable pronunciation ("noo-clee-er").

In summary, what we have is a list of more than 10,000 words that you will never encounter, let alone have to define, pronounce, or use in a sentence. Moreover, words in general use which are often misunderstood, misused or mispronounced do not appear in the book, or if they do, are frequently misunderstood, misused or mispronounced. The content of the book is more accurately described as "Words we don't know: this is what they don't mean, and also how not to pronounce them."

Why the New York Times would place its imprimatur on such trash is a question only the Times can answer. The only good thing about the book is its title, which is provocative and promising. The marketing genius who came up with this has talent.

The content of the book is presumably free from copyright restrictions, either because the Times already owns it or because it has lapsed into the public domain. I favor the former explanation: the Times is churning out a few extra dollars from a worthless database they happen to own. But this is only a theory.

Probably the best use of this book is as a cat box liner. The title is misleading and the content worthless. I find it rather sleazy, on the Times' part, to promote this book.

this book is a godsend for those who need a little help *me* with their spelling... and works wonders for scrabble* words. worth the price.

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