May 3, 2022

Could Words Mean Different Things to Men and Women?

Pip Williams shares how her curiosity inspired her to write The Dictionary of Lost Words

Could Words Mean Different Things to Men and Women?

Pip Williams shares how her curiosity inspired her to write The Dictionary of Lost Words

In 1901, the word bondmaid was found missing from the Oxford English Dictionary. By all accounts, bondmaid was the only word to be lost from the first edition. No one knows how, and that is enough for a story, but there are other reasons I wrote The Dictionary of Lost Words.

Words, for me, have always been acquaintances rather than friends—I recognize them most of the time, but can’t always describe the detail of their features. I’m prone to mixing metaphors, and in my final year of school I had five marks taken off an exam for spelling my own name wrong.

The irony is, that despite my clumsy handling of words, I have always loved how writing them down in a particular way can create a rhythm, or conjure an image, or express an emotion. And I have refused to leave them be.

It was my dad who gave me my first dictionary. If I was going to use words, he said, I should use them properly. But I found the dictionary to be an impenetrable thing. It played hide and seek with words I wanted to spell, and it could be arrogant and inflexible with the meanings it proposed. It was rarely on my side during Scrabble, and it often withheld the old, the rare and the ugly in an effort to be concise (and words, as with anything, are more interesting when they are old, rare or ugly).

I continued to love words, but I learned to dislike dictionaries.

Then I read The Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester. It told a story of the Oxford English Dictionary that I thoroughly enjoyed, but it left me wondering about the authority of the Dictionary. Women were missing at every turn – while they sometimes assisted, they were not editors or lexicographers, and they wrote very few of the books used to understand the meaning of words.

Two questions kept bothering me. Could words mean different things to men and women? If they do, is it possible we have lost something in the process of defining them?

I have explored these questions in my novel, The Dictionary of Lost Words. It tells an alternative story about the English language, a story about women that lives between the lines of the Oxford English Dictionary and lurks in the whitespace of history books. It is a story that has never been told, though fragments of it exist—they can be found in letters and newspaper clippings; in the slips containing words and sentences; in annotated proofs and old family photographs. I have searched for them in the archives of the Oxford University Press, and they have gained substance as I walked through the streets of Oxford.

I have woven a fiction through the bones of history. It starts with a girl called Esme, sitting under the sorting table of the Scriptorium, where all the words of the English language are being defined. I have made her steal that lost word, bondmaid, and then I’ve imagined the influence this word might have on her, and the influence she might have on other words—old, rare and ugly—as she grows into a woman.

This Thursday's coffee and current read is an iced matcha and our new favorite eco-fiction mystery, Bog Queen by @AnnaNorthBooks. Talk about a perfect combo!
Bog Queen is now available, including at our link in bio.
We’re incredibly lucky to have the incomparable and inspiring @Malala join us on Bookmarked, the Reese's Book Club podcast. 💛

She's a powerful voice for so many—championing causes like girls’ education and women’s rights. In her new memoir Finding My Way, Malala Yousafzai turns inward, exploring the messy, beautiful journey of rediscovering yourself after the world has already decided who you’re supposed to be.

In this episode, @DanielleRobay and @Malala's conservation has all the heart—and then some. Listen now on the @iHeartPodcast app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you love to listen. 🎧
Did not see that coming! Gone Before Goodbye by @ReeseWitherspoon & @HarlanCoben is here and you don't want to miss another second. 

Start reading at our link in bio.
Diving back into the brilliant Anita de Monte Laughs Last after hearing @XochitltheG’s powerful conversation with @DanielleRobay at Shine Away.

Feeling deeply inspired by the vibrant storytelling and the beauty woven into every word.
Sorry, we're booked.

It's official! Pick up your copy of Gone Before Goodbye by @ReeseWitherspoon & @HarlanCoben at our link in bio.
Shop the Reese's Book Club Space with us at #ShineAway2025! ☀️@ZibbysBookshop brought the perfect vibes and of course, so many fantastic reads to add to our TBRs.

Which three books would you chose and why?
Today we honor Indigenous voices like our September Pick author @ElianaRamage. ⭐

With honesty and heart, To The Moon and Back shows us what it means to search for a sense of self—and emerge proud.
A literary dream come true 📚 Feeling all the bookish bliss after meeting with @RainbowRowell, author of Slow Dance! The magic at Shine Away is never-ending. ✨