Grant Barrett (born 1970) is an American lexicographer, specializing in slang, jargon and new usage, and the author and compiler of language-related books and dictionaries. He is a co-host and co-producer of the American weekly, hour-long public radio show and podcast A Way with Words.^[1][2] He has made regular appearances on Christopher Kimball's Milk Street Radio,^[3] is often consulted as a language commentator, and has written for The New York Times and The Washington Post, and served as a lexicographer for Oxford University Press and Cambridge University Press.

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Grant Barrett
Grant Barrett recording his radio show A Way with Words
Born	1970 (age 53–54) Missouri, United States
Nationality	American
Alma mater	Columbia University
Occupation(s)	Lexicographer, author, radio show host
Website	grantbarrett.com

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Grant holds a degree in French from Columbia University and has studied at the Université Paris Diderot and the University of Missouri-Columbia, where he was the editor in chief of the student newspaper, The Maneater (1990–91).

He was an early blogger with the website World New York,^[4] which has been archived by the Library of Congress as part of its September 11 Web archive^[5] to preserve the blog's collection of responses to the 9/11 attacks.

In 2007, following the retirement of Richard Lederer from the radio show A Way with Words, Barrett became a co-host and eventually a co-producer of the public radio show, which is broadcast nationally in the United States.^[6][7][8] He co-hosts the show with writer/public speaker Martha Barnette. The caller-based radio show takes a sociolinguistic perspective towards language.^[9]

Barnette, Barrett, and senior producer Stefanie Levine founded the 501(c)(3) organization Wayword, Inc., to fund and produce A Way with Words after KPBS-FM, which had originally produced it, withdrew support.^[10][11]

Barrett is the author of the books Perfect English Grammar (Zephyros Press, 2016, ISBN 978-1623157142) and The Official Dictionary of Unofficial English (McGraw Hill Professional, 2010, ISBN 0071491635, 9780071491631). Perfect English Grammar is a 238-page book on writing and speaking the English language.^[12][13] The Official Dictionary of Unofficial English is based on his Double-Tongued Dictionary and World New York websites, and includes new and unusual words.^[14]

As an editor and lexicographer, he compiled the Oxford Dictionary of American Political Slang (Oxford University Press, 2004, ISBN 0-19-517685-5), originally titled Hatchet Jobs and Hardball: The Oxford Dictionary of American Political Slang, and the award-winning web site Double-Tongued Dictionary.^[15][16][17]

In 2008, he was an emcee in the finals of the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament alongside Merle Reagle.^[18]

He is the vice president of communications and technology for the American Dialect Society, a former member of the editorial review board for the academic journal American Speech, former contributor and editor of the journal's "Among the New Words" column, and a co-founder of the online dictionary Wordnik.^[19][20]

Between 2004 and 2014, Barrett created an annual words-of-the-year list which has been featured in The New York Times and The Dallas Morning News.^{[21][22][23][24]}

Barrett frequently comments on language matters in the popular press, as a radio and podcast guest, as a writer, and as a quoted source.^[25][26][27] He has been a frequent public speaker with his radio partner and on his own, including for TEDxAmericasFinestCity in 2011 and TEDxSDSU in 2012.^[28][29]

Besides the publications given above, he has also written for The Washington Post^[30] and The Malaysia Star.^[31]