If you happen to labored as a typist for Merriam-Webster within the pre-internet period, one among your duties would have been typing out each phrase spelled backwards. Whereas this sounds absurd, there’s a superb purpose that solely is sensible in the event you’re sufficiently old to recollect trying issues up earlier than computer systems.
On a current episode of the Grammar Woman Podcast, which I extremely advocate to fellow phrase nerds, visitor Stefan Fatsis mentioned this peculiar follow. Fatsis wrote the Scrabble guide Phrase Freak and the not too long ago launched Unabridged: The Thrill of (and Menace to) the Fashionable Dictionary, chronicling his time with the famend dictionary’s employees. Whereas embedded with Merriam-Webster, he found the Backward Index. In keeping with merriam-webster.com, typists “creat[ed] a 3″x5” slip for just about each phrase that appeared in boldface within the dictionary typed backward, every letter adopted by an area (and spelled usually, with out the additional areas, beneath its backward spelling.”
The Merriam-Webster Backward Index could have been partly busywork, however it served a vital goal. Earlier than computer systems, discovering all phrases with specific endings—like -ing, -ly, or -phobia—was tedious and almost not possible. However with phrases spelled backwards, this grew to become easy. Sadly, because the ’90s, the backward index has been relegated to cardboard packing containers within the constructing’s basement.
Facet observe: After I learn the podcast episode title, I misinterpret it as Stephan Pastis, who attracts the surprisingly topical cartoon Pearls Earlier than Swine, and was briefly confused. In my protection, the comedian often options sheep. Additionally, I like my new copy of the twelfth Version of Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, although I spilled espresso on it virtually instantly, considerably lowering its “heirloom high quality.”
Beforehand:
• The brand new Merriam-Webster Collegiate is almost 5 kilos of red-covered pleasure
• Malarkey, schadenfreude, and Merriam-Webster’s different Phrases of the Yr
• The Merriam-Webster Dictionary has formally modified the definition of ‘racism.’
