Merriam-Webster gets a little bit cheeky
If dictionaries are supposed to be dry, and to the point, Merriam-Webster has officially broken the mold.
Merriam-Webster’s Twitter account has delighted the masses in the last few years by jumping into hot-topic issues with a dosage of the truth — or the definition at least.
The dictionary tweets out Words of the Day, dictionary quizzes and when users, sparked by events in the news, begin looking up words at a rate higher than usual, the Dictionary tweets out definitions to its almost 300,000 followers.
From defining the word “betray” after Press Secretary Sean Spicer’s use of the word, to reminding Kellyanne Conway the definition of “facts,” the online dictionary has provided clarity on words many may need a refresher on.
So, who are the witty people running Merriam-Webster’s Twitter account?
The Twitter account is run by Lauren Naturale, Merriam-Webster's content and social media manager, but the tweets reflect "the work of many different people," Naturale said in an email interview.
Here's a look at how the account works:
Q: Who runs the Merriam-Webster Twitter?
A: "A lot of our tweets are quotes from, or summaries of, articles we publish on the site, so the writers’ voices are all in there too," Lauren Naturale said in an email. "If something makes you laugh, there’s at least a 50% chance I took it from an article. And my coworkers are always suggesting ideas for tweets, too. So the Twitter ends up sounding like a combination of all our voices."
Q: How has the account evolved?
A: Lisa Schneider, Merriam-Webster's chief digital officer and publisher, said the dictionary's social media presence was "entirely staid and predictable," when she started working for the company.
"Yet I was working with some of the smartest, funniest people I ever had the privilege to meet, and every time I told someone I worked for the dictionary they said, “That’s so cool,'" Schneider said in an email. "So here was this cool brand with smart, sassy conversations and comebacks happening in the office every day—I wanted to share that with the world and show people how fun and relevant the dictionary really is. I convinced my boss at the time to let me hire someone to execute that strategy, and here we are."
Q: When does the social team decide it’s appropriate to chime in with definition of words that may be construed as joining in the political conversation (Ex. Kellyanne Conway’s use of “alternative facts, Sean Spicer’s use of betrayal) ?
A: While many headlines may have said the dictionary was "trolling" Kellyanne Conway and Sean Spicer, the decision to tweet about the words each used had nothing to do with a personal attack, according to the dictionary.
"The ‘fact’ and 'betrayal' tweets were part of our Trend Watch feature, which we've been running since 2010," Naturale said. "When a lot of people are looking up a word at a rate higher than usual, in a way that's related to an event, we share that trend and try to add some additional information on the word's meaning and how it was used. Choosing not to report certain trends would be much more political than continuing as we always have. And many of our trends, like intersex, or conundrum, or ingenue, have nothing to do with politics."
Q: What is Merriam-Webster’s goal on Twitter?
A: "Our goal is to show people how interesting English actually is," Naturale said. "That can mean highlighting the importance of words in current events, or tracing the history of a word—we’ve found examples of the word side-eye in use as early as 1797—or explaining why some grammar “rules” aren’t rules at all. Our language is completely illogical, it’s changing all the time, and even the rules you really should follow don’t make a lot of sense."
Q: What is the feedback like from people online? Is it mixed?
A: "The response has been overwhelmingly positive—we’ve actually heard from a number of people that they were subscribing to our Unabridged dictionary, or getting our app, or running out to buy a physical book," Naturale said.
Q: Do you have an example of a tweet/definition that killed it – or the most popular?
A: "There was some backlash when we added genderqueer to the dictionary last April," Naturale said. "Nothing major, just a handful of comments on social media, but enough that I tweeted “People keep 1) saying they don't know what 'genderqueer' means then 2) asking why we added it to the dictionary.” That tweet has more than 3.5 million impressions now, which is great, because it’s our entire job spelled out in 140 characters. The dictionary’s role is to record the language, and that means adding new words. "
Follow Mary Bowerman on Twitter: @MaryBowerman