You may have seen Grant Barrett at the San Diego Architectural Foundation's last PechaKucha Night on July 20th, at which he enlightened and entertained us with his presentation entitled "Obscenity Truths." We were sold, and he wasn't even trying to sell us anything.   

We are thrilled to announce that Grant has agreed to share his way with words with us by serving as our emcee at the 2011 Orchids & Onions Awards Ceremony & Silent Auction on October 27 at Balboa Theater! Grant is a public radio host, a lexicographer specializing in slang and new words, a journalist, and an editor. He is co-host and co-producer of the nationwide language-related public radio show A Way with Words, which is independently produced and distributed by a nonprofit in San Diego. He's also an editor for Voice of San Diego, a nonprofit source for analysis and investigative journalism. He has worked as a lexicographer for Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press, and Collins, and compiled and edited his own  "Official Dictionary of Unofficial English" (2006, McGraw-Hill) and the "Oxford Dictionary of American Political Slang" (2004, Oxford University Press). He's written on language for the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Malaysia Star, the academic journal American Speech, the professional journal Copyediting and other publications. He serves as an officer of the American Dialect Society, a venerable organization devoted to the study of English in North America.Though born and raised in Missouri, Grant has lived at length in New York City, Paris, and the U.S. Virgin Islands and now lives in sunny California with his wife - also a linguist/ lexicographer, and their son.