Paul Dickson, a native of Yonkers, N.Y., has written more than 45 nonfiction books, including the recent “Labels for Locals: What to Call People from Abilene to Zimbabwe” and “Slang: The Topical Dictionary of Americanisms.”
In recent years, he has been concentrating on writing about baseball, 20th-century history and the American language. He is a graduate of Wesleyan University and has worked for McGraw-Hill Publications. He has been a freelance writer since 1968 and is a consulting editor at Merriam-Webster. He lives in Garrett Park with his wife Nancy.
Are your books always your idea?
There’s only one that a publisher came to me with; all the rest are things that I came up with. One of the most successful books I ever did, which took me the least amount of time, was a book of toasts. I found a book of old Victorian toasts at a yard sale for a dime. And I started using it. People would [come] to me for toasts and I thought, “there’s a market here,” so I went and created a book of toasts. My baseball dictionary, which has been very successful, occurred when my oldest son and I were at a ballgame and he kept asking me about where the terms came from, why did they say “bunt” instead of “bump”? I said we’ll go get a baseball dictionary and there wasn’t one, and that was that.
Is your approach very different than it is for your books about history?
My books like “Sputnik: Shock of the Century” or “The Bonus Army” that I did with Tom Allen, those are narratives, those are books where you’re really telling a story and you have to organize yourself on a totally different plain. You’ve got to hold the reader’s interest and to make sure you’re not giving away the next event before it occurs.
What’s the rule as to how long between updating books about language?
It’s when there’s been a big change. On the “Slang” book, [it’s] every time there’s a major sweep in a new direction. Every once in a while I sort of wake up and say there’s so much new stuff, I’ve got to capture it.
How did you cultivate the sources you use for some of your books?
It’s a little bit like Tom Sawyer and the fence: You tell everybody that you’re having such a great time that you get other people to help. A lot of the people who really help me a lot are writers. I do the same for other people.
Do you have a favorite type of book to work on?
I love the narrative because you can really create a story, a sense of time and place. That’s where the magic is. I think the language is wonderful and I love it, but … my real heart is in the narrative.
You create another world. As a reader, the books I enjoy the most are the ones that are transporting. I’ve been working all day, I don’t want to watch stuff on television, I just want to go in a corner and go to another place.
Are you always “on duty” as a language cop?
Just the opposite. [L]anguage should be comfortable. Language will change as people see things differently and use the language differently. A classic example is “irregardless.” People say it not to drive the puritans crazy, but as a point of emphasis: irregardless of what you say. You’re watching language evolve.
[In terms of making a record of something new,] I’d be doing that anyway. I’ve been doing that since I was a kid. I love to hear new things. I heard someone say the other day about a presentation they’d seen that it was “PowerPointless.”
What is your advice for aspiring freelance writers?
You should have something else you can do because there are going to be times when everything sort of falls apart. And … one of the books you produce should be a perennial. My book on toasts has been that; it’s been selling for years and years and years.
