The latest update from the David Foster Wallace archive at the Harry Ransom Centre [previously] comes from Slate in the form of the full list of circled words from DFW's American Heritage Dictionary.
Juliet Lapidos from Slate's browbeat writes:
What's notable about the list is that along with many three-dollar words that seem rather difficult to pronounce (witenagemot), DFW also marked up more run-of-the-mill entries like the ones for bisque and tennis. Tennis, as anyone who's read Infinite Jest knows well, was of great interest to DFW, who also played the sport competitively. Did he circle bisque while writing Consider the Lobster? We'll never know.
-
I love that pleonasm is one of his circled words because (as well as being a great word) it is one of the word research options on an assignment I set for high school students.
Update: Juv3nal's Wordnik version of the list links each one to it's definition and usage examples.
| < Prev | Next > |
|---|
