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If you’re drawn to both pseudonyms and Gallicisms, how do you know whether you use a nom de plume or a nom de guerre? If you’re Mark Twain, you ask the author of a French–English dictionary who inquired whether you’d like to have his book: “I shall…

Twain’s letter bears a connection to one of his lesser-known short stories, “Paris Notes”: “When the minister gets up to preach, he finds his house full of devout foreigners, each ready and waiting, with his little book in his hand—a morocco-bound…

In later editions of his dictionary, Bellows noted that nom de guerre means “pseudonym: fictitious.” Then: “Nom de plume is rarely used in French.” So he capitalized on Twain’s letter, even if the “pious aspect” comment of the Twain letter dissuaded…

William Dwight Whitney, a Yale linguist and Sanskrit scholar, was a major force in American lexicography. At Noah Porter’s instance, he had contributed to Webster-Mahn. He had also written several books on linguistics. His touchstone about…

The OED’s American counterpart was Whitney’s Century Dictionary, now little remembered outside lexicographic circles. The plan of the work was threefold: (1) to construct a general dictionary “serviceable for every literary and practical use”; (2) to…

In 1914, a special one-volume version of the Century was produced on ultra-thin India paper, with corduroy covers. It was made to lie flat, with a highly flexible spine that would form itself into an upside-down U. It is undoubtedly the thickest…

This advertisement proclaimed: “Over 155,000 sets of The Century Dictionary & Cyclopedia & Atlas have been sold . . . . These volumes . . . are consulted A MILLION TIMES A DAY!” Purchasers were admitted to an institution of higher learning: “The…

The son of Ohio farmers, Isaac Kauffman Funk became a Lutheran pastor and an entrepreneurial religious publisher. With lawyer Adam Wagnalls, he founded the Funk & Wagnalls Company, which produced A Standard Dictionary of the English Language. A staff…