Words

What I want to know is what motivates a person to spend their life finding and describing as many words as possible to make into a dictionary. I mean, we need people like this, right? But you wouldn't want to be friends with one... What does that mean for human society? How many dull but very useful (in a generational, developmental sense) people are discouraged from following their passion for improving the ball-point system of pens or perfecting the flush systems on toilets, just because it won't get them a girlfriend? How much unexplored potential are we losing???