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.