Heather Rivers Issue #41

Redefining Dictionaries

By Jane Soloman
Published: September 1st, 2009 | 10:56am

Lexicographer Heather Rivers is part of the small team that powers Wordnik.com — a new breed of super-dictionary. Wordnik’s geekily ambitious aim is to aggregate and organize all the English words in one place for the first time ever. When a user looks up a word not only will she find a traditional definition, she will also find example sentences, related words, images, statistics, audio pronunciations, and even the latest Twitter feeds containing that word. Rivers uses her word-nerd abilities to sort though the void of the World Wide Web and deliver meaning to the newly enlightened public.

Name: Heather Rivers

Age: 23

Occupation: Computational lexicographer Training Required? While studying linguistics at the University of Chicago, Rivers worked in a linguistics lab and as a systems administrator, and did lots of freelance web development. Normally computational lexicographers have formally studied computer science in some capacity, but Rivers is a self-taught programmer.

Salary: In general, beginning computational lexicographers pull in anywhere between $50,000 to $100,000 a year. Rivers explains that “you probably would earn less at a start-up than you would somewhere else with comparable skills.” But not to worry: “There are compensations other than actual salary — like stock options and getting an introduction to the industry,” she says.

Hours: Because Wordnik is a start-up with huge goals and limited resources, the hours are long. Rivers expects the schedule to become more regular when the majority of the Wordnik team relocates to San Francisco.

Fun Stuff: “It’s extremely exciting to be part of something that is really small, but everyone truly believes will be really huge,” Rivers says. She views Wordnik as “a chance to show people that they are the authors of language and that it’s a living, evolving thing.”

Yucky Stuff: Because the Wordnikers started out by working remotely, they’ve grown accustomed to communicating over IM — even when they’re all together in their now-shared office space. People outside the team have found this modus operandi “possibly the saddest thing ever,” especially when someone unleashes a lexicographical knee-slapper that causes everyone to erupt in laughter and then return diligently to work, all without eye contact.

Words of Wisdom: “I’m into phonology, programming, and high-stress situations,” Rivers says. “The fact that there’s a position that’s perfect for those rare intersections of interests convinces me that you can find a niche for absolutely anything you want to do.”