Sticks? Yes. Stones? Of course.

Words, I’ve heard, will never hurt me, though.

But if you’ve ever been asked, “Perhaps you’d like to try that in a larger size?” while clothes shopping, you know words sting just fine all on their own.

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The danger, power and allure of language is part of the charm of “Guilty by Definition,” the debut mystery by Susie Dent, who has written two previous nonfiction books about language and words.

Set in Oxford, England, at the editorial offices of the fictional Clarendon English Dictionary, the novel’s plot revolves around a long-unsolved cold case that begins to heat up after the arrival of a new editor and the revelation of some buried secrets.

Mixing arcane

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