Dictionary Society of North America

Writing and Literacy in Early China

DSNA member and lexicographer of Chinese David Prager Branner is co-editor (with Li Feng) of a new collection from University of Washington Press, entitled Writing and Literacy in Early China. The long-term continuity and stability of the Chinese written language allows for detailed study of the role literacy played in early civilization. The eleven contributors to this volume inquire into modes of manuscript production, the purposes for which manuscripts were produced, and the ways in which they were actually used. For more information, visit the press's website.

"Occupy" gets ADS nod as 2011 Word of the Year

For the full details, including juicy items like "most outrageous" and "most creative" words, and a photo featuring the backs of a lot of linguist heads, visit the American Dialect Society website. 

A troop of baboons

The fact-checking organization Politifact Rhode Island has determined that an aggregate of baboons is not called a "congress," as claimed in a chain e-mail. After consulting dictionary.com, Merriam Webster, and Oxford, which shed no light, and Urban Dictionary, which was apparently updated using the chain e-mail as a source, the reporter sensibly sought the advice of both primate specialists and lexicographers, consulting DSNA President Orin Hargraves. According to the article, the proper term is "troop."  Using the word "congress" casts unfair aspersions on baboons.

Is there a collective noun for dictionary-makers? I propose "a fascicle of lexicographers." The term is both apropos and sufficiently obscure to send folks to their dictionaries.

Pity the harmless drudge

Reblogging is brisk with a New Year's Eve New York Times story about online dictionaries that "leave out the middleman"--"middleman" now being a synonym for "harmless drudge." Ann Eisenberg's story profiles Wordnik, the project of DSNA member Erin McKean, and the Corpus of Contemporary American English, compiled by Mark Davies, a professor at Brigham Young University. The pros and cons of lexicographer-free lexicography are thrashed out among experts including DSNA's William Kretsczhmar, along with Mark Liberman and Geoffrey Nunberg.   

DSNA winter break hours

The DSNA office will close 24 December - 15 January. During our break we occasionally check email and pick up snail mail, because we can't help ourselves.  After all, we want to hear the American Dialect Society's final word on the word of the year.

CFP: Conference on Language, Literature and Linguistics

The Annual International Conference on Language, Literature and Linguistics (L3 2012) has announced a Call for Papers for its next meeting, to be held 9-10 July in Singapore. For more information, visit the conference website.

More on invented languages

Also published this month: A Dictionary of Made-Up Languages: From Adûnaic to Elvish, Zaum to Klingon, the Anwa (Real) Origins of Invented Lexicons, by Stephen D. Rogers (Adams Media Corporation). The Chicago Tribune published an amusing feature on the book which you can read here; I was particularly pleased to learn about "Molvanian. Created by three guys who wrote a faux travel guide, 'Molvania: A Land Untouched by Modern Dentistry,' it uses four genders: male, female, neutral and the collective noun for cheeses."

Dictionaries on Project Muse

Dictionaries: Journal of the Dictionary Society of North America is available at Project Muse.  If you are a member of DSNA, you may access the journal there; please contact the office for your log in information.

DSNA member creating signs for the homeless

If you attended DSNA's meeting in Montreal this past June, you will remember that the banquet entertainment included Christopher Devine's monologue portraying a door-to-door OED salesman. Here's another side of Chris's eclectic work: the Chicago Tribune has a long article on his project of distributing readable (Helvetica, natch), laminated signs to homeless people in Chicago. Or visit Chris's blog. I had overlooked an article about the project that appeared in last month's New York Times; the photo below is from the Times (Chris is the bespectacled fellow on the right).

"Pragmatic" is Merriam-Webster's Word of the Year

In choosing the 2011 Word, the editors were following the electronic footsteps of their readers, who looked up "pragmatic" in increasing numbers during and following Congress's August debate over the debt ceiling. For more details, including comments from DSNA members Peter Sokolowski (Merriam-Webster editor at large) and Allan Metcalf (executive secretary of the American Dialect Society, which picks its WOTY next month), check out the AP wire story.