Dictionary Society of North America

"Street Smart": Urban Dictionary

2009-07-03T07:35:00.002-04:00

New York Times essayist Virginia Heffernan has a lively discussion of the Urban Dictionary at http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/05/magazine/05FOB-medium-t.html?ref=magazine. You must sign up to read the Times on line but it's free.

Reflection on the late Richard Allsop

2009-07-02T13:11:00.005-04:00

"Inspired by a lifelong love of words, his exceptional capacity for work and an indomitable will, Richard Allsopp created the monumental Dictionary of Caribbean English Usage – a priceless asset to the nation and region." The rest of the article Richard Allsopp: words, work and willpower, was published in the June 30, 2009 Guyana Review.

CFP: International Conference for Historical Lexicography & Lexicology

2009-06-29T14:09:00.004-04:00

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

2009-06-18T11:50:00.004-04:00

"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

2009-06-14T15:05:00.004-04:00

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

2009-06-14T14:52:00.004-04:00

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

2009-06-05T14:10:00.003-04:00

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

2009-06-05T13:43:00.002-04:00

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

2009-06-05T11:30:00.002-04:00

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

2009-06-05T11:21:00.003-04:00

"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

2009-06-05T11:18:00.004-04:00

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

2009-06-05T10:16:00.004-04:00

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

2009-06-04T11:13:00.003-04:00

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'

2009-06-03T15:41:00.003-04:00

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

2009-06-02T11:40:00.006-04:00

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...

2009-06-01T13:09:00.004-04:00

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.

2009 Meeting--Cordell Collection Visit

2009-05-21T08:44:00.001-04:00

This press release from Indiana University offers a nice preview of a key attraction of our meeting next week. Check out http://www.indstate.edu/news/news.php?newsid=1811.

2009 DSNA Meeting Program

2009-05-18T20:53:00.000-04:00

The revised program for the 2009 DSNA Meeting in Bloomington has been posted.

You can access it here DSNA_program.doc .

New books about language myths, slang, and more

2009-05-18T11:01:00.004-04:00

The Boston Globe reviews a number of word books, with mention of volumes by DSNA members Michael Adams and Jeff Prucher, as well as investigation into the history of "shyster" by Gerald Cohen. Visit: http://tinyurl.com/o7s5sc.

National Humanities Center Fellowships

2009-05-07T15:26:00.002-04:00

The National Humanities Center offers 40 residential fellowships for advanced study in the humanities during the academic year, September 2010 through May 2011. Applicants must hold doctorate or equivalent scholarly credentials. The Center is international and accepts applications from scholars outside the United States. The Center seeks to provide at least half salary and also covers travel expenses to and from North Carolina for Fellows and their dependents.

Deadline and Application Procedures. Applicants submit the Center’s form, supported by a curriculum vitae, a 1000-word project proposal, and three letters of recommendation. You may request application material from Fellowship Program, National Humanities Center, Post Office Box 12256, Research Triangle Park, North Carolina 27709-2256, or obtain the form and instructions from the Center’s website http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org.

Applications and letters of recommendation must be postmarked by October 15, 2009.

Dictionary of vanishing fisherfolk dialect

2009-05-06T10:25:00.001-04:00

"A dictionary of words and phrases from Cromarty's fisherfolk dialect was published on Saturday, providing a written record of what has been described as one of Scotland's most threatened dialects." To read the rest of the story from the Inverness Courier, visit http://www.inverness-courier.co.uk/news/fullstory.php/aid/9405/.

Webster's Dictionary returned to library after 110 years

2009-04-20T21:52:00.002-04:00

Yet it took Ammon Shea only a year to read the OED! For more details on this story see http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2009/04/12/ont-overduebook.html.

DSNA election results

2009-04-07T11:27:00.004-04:00

The results of the 2009 DSNA election are as follows:

Vice President, 2009-2011/President elect for 2011-2013: Orin Hargraves
Executive Secretary, 2009-2013: Lisa Berglund
Members at Large, 2009-2013: Donna Farina & Julia Plier

Remaining on the Board are:
Michael Hancher, President 2009-2011
Members at Large, 2009-2011: Ed Finegan & Steve Kleinedler

Past President, Terry Pratt

The newly elected Board members will assume their duties after the conclusion of the DSNA biennial conference, on 1 June 2009.

Thank you very much to the Nominating Committee and to everyone who participated.

ASL Children's Dictionary

2009-04-02T11:28:00.007-04:00

A recently announced business partnership between the Canadian Cultural Society of the Deaf and regional content producer, marblemedia will produce an online, interactive American Sign Language (ASL) dictionary for deaf children. For more information, visit http://www.animationinsider.net/article.php?articleID=2041.

Computational Linguistics Applications Workshop CFP

2009-03-23T10:44:00.003-04:00

The Computational Linguistics Applications Workshop (CLA'09), to be held in Mrągowo, Poland, October 12-14, has posted a call for papers at http://www.imcsit.org/pg/199/161.