BOOKS: The Gargantuan and Terrifying Lexicographer

SAMUEL JOHNSON: A BIOGRAPHY
By Peter Martin, Harvard University Press, $35, 608 pages

SAMUEL JOHNSON: THE STRUGGLE
By Jeffrey Meyers, Basic Books, $35, 552 pages

REVIEWED BY JAMES SRODES
It should have been one of the great meetings in the evolution of the English language. In the late 1750s, Dr. Samuel Johnson, famed for his monumental "Dictionary of the English Language," attended a London meeting of a charity that sought to teach orphaned and abandoned children of all races throughout the American colonies. Another attendee was Benjamin Franklin, equally famous for his electricity discoveries and his authorship of the internationally popular "Poor Richard's Almanack."

To continue reading this article, visit http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/jan/25/books-the-gargantuan-and-terrifying-lexicographer/

The Online Dictionary Revolution Starts with the Launch of Leximo

Leximo is a social dictionary that invites users to submit words in every spoken language of the world. To read more visit: http://www.pitchengine.com/leximo/the-online-dictionary-revolution-starts-with-the-launch-of-leximo/3512/

Searchable Sign-Language Dictionary

Boston University researchers are developing a searchable dictionary for sign language. For the rest of the article, visit http://www.technologyreview.com/communications/21944/?a=f.

New Yorker review of two Johnson biographies

Adam Gopnik reviews Peter Martin's Samuel Johnson and Jeffrey Meyers' Samuel Johnson: The Struggle. Visit http://tinyurl.com/5votuw.

Washington Post interview with Orin Hargraves

A Washington Post blog published this short interview on the occasional of the fourth anniversary of "The Language Lounge." To read the interview, visit http://tinyurl.com/6uy7s8. The address for "The Language Lounge" is http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/ll/.

MLA 2009, Philadelphia, Dec 27-30

Dr. Johnson's Tercentenary

Papers invited in honor of 300th year of Johnson's birth. Papers may address Johnson's dictionary specifically, or associated topics, such as single-author dictionaries, Johnson's role in the formation of the English literary canon, or contemporary uses of Johnson's work. All papers must be presented in 20 minutes and all speakers must be members of the MLA by April 1. Abstracts of no more than 250 words should be sent to Felicia Jean Steele (The College of New Jersey), steele@tcnj.edu, no later than March 15, 2009.

Johnson Word-a-Day

In celebration of the three hundredth anniversary of Johnson’s birth in 1709, a definition from the first edition of Samuel Johnson’s A Dictionary of the English Language (1755) will be posted each day for readers’ lexiconic delight on Dr. Johnson’s Dictionary, the Beinecke’s new word-a-day dictionary blog. Words will be taken from the annotated proof copy of the first edition, extra-illustrated with Johnson’s and his helpers’ manuscript corrections, held in the collections of Yale University’s Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.

Google Books, the OED, and Victorian studies

For an instructive conversation about relations between formal lexicography and the wealth of lexical data recently unearthed by Google Books, especially as regards Victorian studies, see recent postings on the topics "addiction and the OED" and "OED and Victorian studies" at the VICTORIA listserv. Participants include Mary Carpenter, Debbie Harrison, Simon Humphries, Patrick Leary, Sally Mitchell, and Fred Shapiro.