CFP: International Conference for Historical Lexicography & Lexicology

Papers are now invited for the fifth International Conference for Historical Lexicography and Lexicology, to be held at St Anne’s College Oxford 16-18 June 2010. Plenary speakers will be Michael Adams (‘World War II, Anglo-American Lexicography, and the Dictionary of American English’), Ulrike Hass (‘In search of the European dimension of lexicography’) and John Simpson (‘OED3 in the making’). The conference will mark the tenth anniversary of OED Online: i.e., the major revision of the OED currently underway in Oxford. Papers relating to dictionaries and dictionary-making are particularly welcome, but as with past conferences we hope to attract papers on a broad range of topics in lexicography and lexicology. Abstracts (no more than 300 words) should be sent to mailto:ichll%40herald.ox.ac.uk by 30 November 2009.

More information will be posted on the conference website, http://www.english.ox.ac.uk/ichll2010/ in due course.
For more information on ISHLL and its conferences see http://www.le.ac.uk/ee/jmc21/ishll.html.

Dictionaries at the Venice Biennale

"Richard Wentworth's hanging mobile of dictionaries pierced by wires also produced a few appreciative smiles. Stand underneath it, like a baby in a cot beneath a set of pink rabbits, and you can read the titles, Finnish by A.H.Whitney, Learn Teluga in 30 Days, Collins Italian Dictionary, A Dictionary of Current American Usage. Each one is strung out below a dark iron frame and secured by a steel knot." So writes Peter Stothard on his TimesOnline blog. I found the photo at http://universes-in-universe.org/eng/bien/venice_biennale/2009/.

Wordnik beta site launched

Wordnik, http://www.wordnik.com/, "wants to be a place for all the words, and everything known about them." The project is helmed by DSNA members Grant Barrett, Erin McKean and Orion Montoya.

1,000,000th word foofarah

Well, I wasn't going to post about the supposed milestone, but as the Newspaper of Record quotes some of our members, here's a link to the article from today's New York Times' Week in Review section (is it a section if you access it online? Today I read the paper copy). I'm actually more interested in which library of dictionaries has been used for the illustration. Does anyone recognize it? Visit: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/14/weekinreview/14shuessler.html.

Publications discount for Bloomington registrants

Don't forget: If you registered for the Bloomington meeting, you may purchase backlist DSNA publications at a reduced price. Visit the DSNA Bloomington website (see the link on the sidebar) and click on Publications for Purchase.

Richard Allsop has died at age 86

Richard Allsop was editor of the Dictionary of Caribbean English Usage (1996). For links to obits, please visit http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=1483. Thanks to Benjamin Zimmer for this update.

More updates from Bloomington

Here's a link to Ammon Shea's blog at OUP USA, asking the very sensible question, "Why don't more people go to conferences?" Visit http://blog.oup.com/2009/06/conferences/.

Languages on Life Support

"Last year, when 89-year-old Marie Smith Jones died, a language died with her. Jones was the last speaker of a south-central Alaskan language called Eyak..." For the rest of the story, visit the Chronicle of Higher Education's website at:
http://chronicle.com/free/v55/i38/38linguistics.htm

On DSNA's visit to the Cordell Collection

Here's a nice illustrated article from the Indiana State University news service, about the Cordell Collection and DSNA's visit during our Bloomington meeting. I'm only sorry the photo of Baretti's Dictionary of English and Italian Languages is too small for you to see what a wonderful book it is. Visit http://www.indstate.edu/news/news.php?newsid=1820.

The Story behind Hobson-Jobson

At the 2009 DSNA meeting in Bloomington last week, Traci Nagle, who won the Urdang-DSNA Fellowship in 2008, presented a paper on her fellowship-funded research into the origins of "Hobson-Jobson." Benjamin Zimmer of the Visual Thesaurus offers a discussion of that paper at his Word Routes blog: check out http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/wordroutes/1874/.

We look forward to sharing other souvenirs, reflections and commentaries on the meeting--just send us the links!

Violence at Greek-Macedonian Dictionary book launch

For more details about the incident, which occurred on 3 June 2009 at a promotional event for a 15,000-word dictionary prepared by Vasko Karadza, visit http://macedoniaonline.eu/content/view/6982/2/ .

Maybe DSNA should hold a qep'a'

At a qep'a', or Klingon conference, that Arika Okrent attended in Phoenix, most conversations took place with the aid of dictionaries on hand-held devices. For more on Okrent's book In the Land of Invented Languages, their lexicons, and the folks who speak them, visit:

http://tinyurl.com/ptgjjw.

Images from Bloomington

DSNA members Grant Barrett and Orion Montoya have posted video and photos from our meeting under a Creative Commons license. Here's a shot of the Lilly Library's cantankerously annotated "[An Abominable Misrepresentation of] Chinook [Jargon]: A [False] History and [Abridged] Dictionary." Visit

http://tinyurl.com/moarl4

and

http://tinyurl.com/l79wng

to relive happy memories or gnash your teeth over what you missed!

A Great Conference! See you in Montreal...

Thank you to Michael Adams and his team for a wonderful conference, and also to David Vancil, the Cordell Collection and the Indiana State University Foundation.

Watch this space for news about DSNA 2011, which will meet in Montreal.