Volunteer Dictionary Editorial Assistants
April 3, 2007 4:32 AM

Double-Tongued Dictionary is looking for volunteers to assist in the hunt for new or unrecorded words. This is ideal for anyone who wants beginning experience at learning lexicography—the art and craft of making dictionaries.

Double-Tongued Dictionary is a three-year-old web site devoted to discovering real words that are unrecorded or under-documented in mainstream dictionaries, including slang, jargon, and new words. The work is interesting but simple, rewarding but tedious. We strive to maintain high lexicographical standards.

You're literate, well-read, educated, and alert to the subtleties of language. You are a speaker of any variety of English as a first language. You fancy yourself a wordsmith. You read the dictionary for pleasure. You have a perverse delight in arcana. You keep up with current events and you read a lot of periodicals, online and off. You have three to ten hours a week to volunteer your time.

In the beginning, your task would be to sort through incoming messages to note those words that are new to you, just one of three steps a word travels before it is recorded in the database. This is an important part of making any dictionary—larger operations, like the Oxford English Dictionary, have thousands of people searching for new words. Later, there may be opportunities to learn how to construct dictionary entries, including writing definitions.

I'm sorry, but there is no compensation available for the work. For what it's worth, you will be credited on the staff page of the web site, including links to your own sites or projects. If your school allows, this could be considered an unpaid internship.

Please send an email explaining at length your interest in volunteering for the dictionary. No phone calls, please. Resumes are interesting but not necessary.

Thanks,

Grant Barrett
Editor, Double-Tongued Dictionary

payscale: 0
job type: volunteer
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