Quotes from Susie Dent

I work with the Oxford Dictionary databases, which sounds really boring, but they're actually fascinating as they show you how current words are being used.

I don't intentionally eavesdrop. I'm not looking for salacious gossip, I'm just looking for vocabulary items.

I really was the nerd in the car that read vocabulary books. If we were going on day trips, I would quite like to have just stayed in the car with my German and French vocab books. It's embarrassing to admit to it now.

Friable isn't often used of food, yet its meaning lends itself perfectly to pastry and crumbly biscuits.

The battle between server and servee is as ancient as it is well disguised, and it follows, therefore, that waiters have developed a private lingo that allows them to mock, complain, or simply entertain themselves.

I'm a big believer in change and embrace the fact that English is probably the fastest-moving language in the world.

We all know that little words or phrases can mean a lot, yet so few of us know just what to say. Phrases, such as 'chin up,' or 'it could be worse,' usually have the opposite effect; they feel tired and impersonal, even dismissive.

There is an art to eavesdropping, but I think to some extent we are all guilty of picking up those little odds and ends that can be quite intriguing if you analyse them.

Probably my favourite winter-word of all. Apricity is the warmth of the sun on a chilly day.

Why use salty when you can have brackish? It carries a sense of part-water, part-salt, too, just like the sea.

The extraordinary thing about new words is that probably only about one per cent of them are new. Most are old words revived and adapted.

For the Anglo-Saxons, meat was the main meal of the day, which revolved around 'before-meat' and 'after-meat.' But it has ended up as the metaphor for the most basic: 'meat and potatoes' is as far from sassy - from 'sauce' - as you can get.

Youthquake' wasn't an entirely predictable choice for Oxford's Word of 2017. It hasn't been on the lips of an entire nation, nor is it new. But it amply fulfilled the criteria Oxford requires for selection.

For the Anglo-Saxons, food determined a person's position in society.

The character of our language defines us, and dictionaries say as much about us as about the way we speak.

Claggy is often seen as a negative word, yet for me it describes perfectly that full-mouthed feel of a treacle tart of banoffee pie.

I love both garlic and onions, and this word pithily captures the rich tastes of both.

One of the things I noticed is that if you look up the word ambition you will see that when it's applied to women, it's almost always negative. If a woman is ambitious she's cutthroat, she's seen as more unpleasant. Whereas when its attached to a man it's far less negative.

I'm not a brazen extrovert, but I'm not as blushing or demure as people might think.

Above all, Jane Goodall continues to teach us that, as humans, we are no more entitled to our glorious planet than the chimps she so lovingly protects.

I was fascinated by the shape of words even before I knew what they meant.

Britain's fascination with its changing language is renowned.

I remember as a child of five or six lying in the bath marvelling at the different languages displayed on the shampoo bottles around me. From that moment on it was always words not numbers that held a fascination for me.

In the middle of the 20th century, aspirations to sound 'proper' were passionately pursued. Dictionaries as late as the Seventies include many pronunciations that could cut the proverbial glass.