Dictionary Society of North America

DSNA Office closed during 2013 Biennial Meeting

The DSNA Office will be closed until 28 May, as we head to Athens, Georgia for the 19th biennial DSNA meeting. 

DSNA Office closed for winter break

The DSNA office will close today, 31 December 2012, at 3 pm, and will reopen on 22 January 2013.

DSNA Journal 1979-2011 now available on Project Muse

DSNA is delighted to announce that the entire run of our journal Dictionaries: The Journal of the Dictionary Society of North America, is available on Project Muse, http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/dictionaries/. Please note that the current issue (vol. 32) contains a topical index that may facilitate your browsing through the archives.

The passwords required for accessing Dictionaries on Project Muse were shared with current members last year; for new members, they appear in your welcome letter. If you have mislaid this information, please contact us.

 

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.

DSNA office closed for summer vacation

The DSNA office will be closed 1-21 August for summer vacation.  We plan to check email occasionally and post to the blog. We just can't help ourselves.

Rock that usage!

Here's another report from the DSNA Montreal conference, this time in The Montreal Gazette. Ben Zimmer's paper on hip-hop takes center stage, but reporter Karen Seidman also has a keen eye for lexicographical haberdashery. And after quoting Michael Adams on Ammon Shea's analysis of  the shocking academic practice of misciting lexicons, she ruefully continues:

        Some academics may actually refer to "the dictionary" as if there  is only one.

        Dimwits! (Okay, I have to fess up--I referred to "the dictionary" in the first five seconds  of  my  interview with Zimmer. I definitely did not rock that usage.)

The rest of her witty story, "Chillax, English is always evolving," is available here.



DSNA Montreal press coverage

The National Post has reported on our meeting: food words are naturally a topic of interest. Check out the story, entitled, "At the Dictionary Society of North America, words matter--a lot" here. Reporter Graeme Hamilton quotes Lise Winer on citrus fruit and Ron Butters on chocolate chips, and then (proceeding to more frivolous matters) interviews Ben Zimmer on the new hip-hop lexis and quotes my own presentation on early American annotations of "naughty words."

Happy Birthday Webster's Third: have some cake

As I mentioned in my last, we celebrated the 50th anniversary of Webster's Third on Wednesday evening at our meeting in Montreal, and DSNA member Christopher Devine has obliged with a handsome photo of the cake pre-slicing--I arrived too late (for photos, I hasten to add, not for eating):

 

Christopher also sent along a shot of the conference program/poster, which Lise Winer brilliantly designed from a word-cloud taken from the Index to Sidney Landau's Dictionaries:

 
As well as a clever faux-title page for his own instructive talk on "The first English dictionary: Robert Cawdrey and the myth of creation":

Many thanks to Christopher, and I encourage everyone else to contribute photos to illustrate further reports.

Chocolate chips and food for thought in Montreal

We're having a terrific time here in Montreal at the 2011 DSNA meeting, thanks to Lise Winer and her organizational team.  We started with two papers on French dictionaries for Quebec and the Carribbean, followed by a reception celebrating the 50th anniversary of Webster's Third International, hosted by Peter Sokolowski of Merriam Webster. If anyone took a photo of the cake before the ravenous horde descended, send it along so I can post it! Here's a snap of our VINTAGE party favor:

The next morning Ron Butters gave a paper on "‘Chocolate chip’ and the silent subreption of the lexicon" that sent everyone hungrily out into the coffee break, where Lise mercifully had arranged for chocolate chip cookies.

Here's the gang, on the steps of the Redpath Museum at McGill University (thanks to Linda Hancher for stepping in as photographer):

 

and here's a photo of one of the fascinating dictionaries in the exhibit that the Rare Books Collection staff at McGill put together (along with a jolly reception on Thursday night):

 

And here, for what's it's worth, is a photo I included in my own presentation, "Secular Bibles: Annotations in Early American Dictionaries." The dictionary is in the Cordell Collection.

 

 If you took any photos you'd like to share, or if you're posting them on your own blog, do let me know.

DSNA office to close during Montreal meeting

The DSNA office will close today and reopen on Monday, 14 June. See you in Montreal!