Exacting and attentive to details or highly principled and eager to avoid wrongdoing. Either the kind of person who masters a dance by studying its moves or the kind of person who avoids the dance altogether because it seems possibly inappropriate, even scandalous.
AnimalsDogsCorgisOh haiHaving way too much funThe wheels on the bicycle go like...Chasing a squirrel?
Lexicographers are the guardians of the dictionary. They sort through all the possible uses for a word and write the definition of what that word means. This is always interesting—word usage changes over time and there can be many, many definitions for words. Slate has a great book excerpt that shows how interesting and challenging this can be:
My first citation read, “She was taken aback.” I exhaled in relief: This is simple. I scanned the galley and found the appropriate definition—“to catch or come upon in a particular situation or action” (sense 3b)—and began my pile. The next handful of citations were similarly dispatched—a pile for sense 2, a pile for sense 1a, a pile for sense 7d—and I began to relax. In spite of its size, this is no different from any other batch, I reasoned. I am going to whip through this, and then I am going to take a two-week vacation, visit my local library, and go outside.
Fate, now duly tempted, intervened. My next cit read, “Reason has taken a back seat to sentiment.” I confidently flipped it onto the pile with “taken aback” and then reconsidered. This use of “take” didn’t really mean “to catch or come upon in a particular situation or action,” did it? I tried substitution: Reason did not catch or come upon a backseat. No: Reason was made secondary to sentiment. I scanned the galleys and saw nothing that matched, then put the citation in a “new sense” pile. But before I could grab the next citation, I thought, “Unless ... ”
When a lexicographer says “unless ... ” in the middle of defining, you should turn out the lights and go home, first making sure you’ve left them a supply of water and enough nonperishable food to last several days. “Unless ... ” almost always marks the beginning of a wild lexical goose chase.
Go read the whole thing at Slate, then hug a lexicographer (or drag them out of their hole).
WritingLexicographyIn the dictionaryThe many senses of takeSo you knowStraight tooken?