Austin Kleon — jez-burrows: I’ve been experimenting with...

I’ve been experimenting with writing very, very short stories made up entirely of the example sentences given for words in the dictionary, with nothing added except a little punctuation to piece them together. 

The idea came about when I noticed that the sentences used in Dictionary.app (which uses the New Oxford American Dictionary) were either weirdly specific or unexpectedly poignant. Talking to a lexicographer friend, I found out that these sentences are referred to as ‘in-line example sentences’ and are editorially researched and written by lexicographers in order to demonstrate the most probable construction of a sentence including that word. 

I’m writing a handful of these and illustrating them for a little zine for next month’s Zinefest, but I’ll share more here when it’s wrapped up.