David Skinner

David Skinner

David Skinner is a writer and editor living in Alexandria, Virginia. He writes about language, culture, and his life as a husband, father, and suburbanite. He has been a staff editor at The Weekly Standard, for which he still writes, and the editor of Doublethink magazine. Currently he is the editor of Humanities magazine, which is published by the National Endowment for the Humanities. He has written for the Wall Street Journal, the New Atlantis, Slate, the Washington Times, the American Spectator, and many other publications. And he is on the usage panel for the American Heritage Dictionary. He is the author of THE STORY OF AIN’T: America, Its Language, and the Most Controversial Dictionary Ever Published.
Category: Miscellaneous

Interviews with David Skinner»See allInterviews RSS Feed

What's a dictionary? David Skinner joins Jim Blasingame to talk about the history of dictionaries, how they were developed and published, and why we have generations who have never used one.
For good or bad, America's language has evolved. David Skinner joins Jim Blasingame to talk about how America's language has evolved and not always in a good way, plus how much Webster's legitimizing of the word "ain't" contributed.
Did the 1961 Webster's Third Dictionary change America? David Skinner joins Jim Blasingame to discuss America, its language, and and how the Webster's Third Dictionary caused controversy by legitimizing "ain't."