Live author interview with Pip Williams - Walter Scott Prize Shortlist Spotlight

Debut novel THE DICTIONARY OF LOST WORDS, already an international bestseller, was shortlisted for the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction 2021. In this live interview, author Pip Williams joins us from Australia to talk about her inspiration for her novel about the creation of the inaugural Oxford English Dictionary, and the women's words (and women) who were forgotten.
Read the latest about the Prize at www.walterscot...

[@kevinrussell1144]

Any language is a living thing (as long as it in use by humans) and it is NEVER complete or final (until it is). Any version of a dictionary is a compilation of the moment, a snapshot, whether compiled by SJ or 999 bearded (and un-bearded) scholars and scholarettes (don't drop the slip with that last one written out).
Do women use and mean different things when they utter a certain word, as opposed to a man speaking the same? True, a man using the word "cunt", may have something else in mind as compared to Pip (Williams, not Pirrip) using a similar sounding word. And??
But isn't that the case with any word that claims to capture an object or concept? What is a rose, what is a summer's day, in a word?