Let's Look At the Dictionary!

​This week, host Craig Chapman turns his analytical focus toward the ultimate structure: The Dictionary. This episode ignores the literary merit and instead analyzes the dictionary as a colossal, yet perpetually flawed, organizational system.

​We break down the historical chaos of inconsistent spelling and definition, and examine Samuel Johnson's monumental 18th-century attempt to lock the language down with permanent rules. Was this massive data-collection project doomed from the start? We dissect the system's greatest flaw: the inevitable problem of time—the static book trying to contain a moving, fluid system. A noble effort, but ultimately a losing battle against the unstoppable force of change.

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