Erin McKean

Erin McKean (born 1971) is an American lexicographer, based in the San Francisco Bay Area. 2Early life and education McKean was born in Charlotte, North Carolina. She graduated from the University of Chicago with a BA/MA in Linguistics. As an undergraduate, she worked in a junior capacity on the Chicago Assyrian Dictionary. McKean has also served on the Visiting Committee to the University of Chicago's Regenstein Library and helped organize a dictionary-themed exhibit, The Meaning of Dictionaries, there in 2007. 2Career McKean is a founder of Reverb, which makes the online dictionary Wordnik. She was previously the editor in chief of US Dictionaries for Oxford University Press and Principal Editor of The New Oxford American Dictionary, second edition. McKean is the author of seven books: Weird and Wonderful Words (illustrated by Roz Chast, with an introduction by Simon Winchester, Oxford, 2002) More Weird and Wonderful Words (illustrated by Danny Shanahan), Oxford, 2003) Totally Weird and Wonderful Words (Oxford, 2006) That’s Amore (Walker & Company, 2007) The Secret Lives of Dresses (Grand Central, 2011) Aftercrimes, Geoslavery, and Thermogeddon: Plus 157 More Words From a Lexicographer's Notebook (TED Books, 2011) The Hundred Dresses (illustrated by Donna Mehalko, Bloomsbury, 2013) McKean is also the editor of VERBATIM: The Language Quarterly, and edited a collection of work from that publication, Verbatim: From the bawdy to the sublime, the best writing on language for word lovers, grammar mavens, and armchair linguists (Mariner Books, 2001). McKean's novel The Secret Lives of Dresses was a best-seller in Australia, and has been optioned for film. She writes about dresses in her blog, A Dress A Da