Cher Pierre Larousse…

2017 marks the bicentenary of Larousse’s birth (1817-1875).

In the manner of Cher Corbu, Cher Matisse, Cher Nicéphore

and Chère Camille Claudel, Cher Pierre Larousse is an outspoken

declaration to this tireless man of progress, at a time when

anxiety prevails over matters like learning how to read

and write, the endangerment of our spelling, the rise of illiteracy,

the evolution of the tongue, the reform of spelling; a time when

tweets and texts messages induce new vocabulary.

Our authors willingly revisited memories

around their first dictionaries, the Larousse that

went from hand to hand, greedily browsed through

or repurposed, intertwining family saga with History.

They joyfully evoked the word one looks for or mistreats,

the word of the year, the forbidden word and the word

yet to be invented. Words, words, and words again:

to be or not to – in the Larousse…