Moi on NPR’s “Talk of the Nation”

Had a blast on TOTN yesterday along with the lovely and talented Grant Barrett and Geoff Pullum of Language Log. The topic was ostensibly “how the Web has changed the way people research words,” but we had some great callers, and the show went off in lots of interesting directions. It’s worth a listen: Audio here.

Incidentally, if you already know what a merkin is, then you’ll understand why I laughed so hard when one caller said that merkin is the first word he looks up when test-driving a new dictionary.

Those of you who don’t know from merkins can seek enlightenment here.

And if anyone finds a dictionary with an illustration of a merkin, please do let us know about it, okay?

UPDATE: Much more about merkins in Wikipedia, of course.