A Way with Words

“Few scholars could bridge the gap between the old world of classical philology and the new world of large language models the way Spencer Klavan does, and few writers could tell a story so rich, convincing, and consoling.”—Christopher Caldwell, New York Times bestselling author of The Age of Entitlement

“Spencer Klavan has written a sparkling meditation on the interwoven stories of human text, thought, prayer, and meaning. In our age of machines that seem to write and speak, A Way With Words is an erudite, wide-ranging, and lucid reminder that there really is a ‘there’ there, and—hello!—it’s us.”—Mary Harrington, author of Feminism Against Progress

“Spencer Klavan's great talent is to take his mastery of ancient thought and apply it to modern ends, helping us to see our own times more clearly.” —Louise Perry, author of The Case Against the Sexual Revolution

“Spencer Klavan articulates a vision of language as a conceptual scaffold on the outer and inner world and as a medium through which the author of creation imposed order. Human language is not simply the most elevated form of animal vocalization, but a reflection of our Imago Dei.” —Razib Khan, creator of Unsupervised Learning Substack

“The hallmark of homo sapiens is articulation, the ability to frame and share thoughts intelligibly. God knows that men and women have misused this prerogative often, using words to manipulate and lie; yet words have kept their capacity to carry humane significance. The rapid development of Artificial Intelligence has changed all that. We are bombarded by words that have no human provenance. All of a sudden, we feel less special. It is urgent to reflect, now, on the nature of words, to give a clear account of why words cannot be surrendered to machines. Spencer Klavan's exhilarating book is massively erudite, but never ponderous. Great learning in languages and literature is used to educate, not to patronize the reader, who feels, as a result, privileged. Klavan pores over words because he loves them. His method turns out to be his strongest argument. What only human beings can do, and no LLM, is to bring forth words from and for the sake of delight.” —Erik Varden, Bishop of Trondheim, Norway