Lexicography reading list on "The Reading Life"

The Reading Life blog for 2 March 2010 recommends popular works on lexicography--all are mentioned in DSNA's reading list, I think, but the blog's compilation is usefully annotated. If you have any suggestions for works I could add to our list, drop me a line.

Ben Zimmer is the new "On Language" columnist

Ben Zimmer, executive producer of the Visual Thesaurus and Vocabulary.com, and a longtime member of DSNA, has just been named the "On Language" columnist for The New York Times Magazine. He will be replacing William Safire, another DSNA member, who passed away last year. Beginning with the March 21 issue of the Magazine, Ben will be writing the column on a biweekly basis.

The Visual Thesausus reports that: "Ben's writing about language has also appeared in Slate, the Boston Globe, Forbes.com, and the linguistics blog Language Log. William Safire frequently called upon his linguistic expertise, once calling him "that etymological Inspector Javert." He filled in as "On Language" columnist in 2009 when Safire went on hiatus due to ill health, and after Safire's passing he wrote a touching tribute in the Magazine entitled, "The Maven, Nevermore."

Dictionaries via GoogleBooks

Ben Zimmer has drawn my attention to Steven K. Baum's comprehensive list of the dictionaries available through GoogleBooks. You can access it directly at Interesting Schtoff at Google Books or via Language Hat.

MLA Call for Papers: Lexicography Literature

Here's a proposed MLA session of lexicographical interest. The deadline looms!

Topic: Papers addressing fiction or poetry that involves dictionaries or their makers as an operating conceit. Please send 500-word abstracts by 1 March 2010, to Chris P. Pearce (cppearce@bu.edu).

New editor of Dictionaries appointed

The Executive Board of DSNA is delighted to announce that Elizabeth Knowles has been appointed to a two-year term as editor of Dictionaries: The Journal of the Dictionary Society of North America. She succeeds William Frawley, who has edited the journal since 2006.

Elizabeth Knowles (pictured here with a learned friend) is a historical lexicographer who worked on the 4th edition of the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary (1993), and is currently editor of the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations (7th edition, 2009). Her other editorial credits include What They Didn’t Say: A Book of Misquotations (2006), and the Little Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs (2009). She is currently working on a book on the historical language for Oxford University Press, to appear later this year.

AP Stylebook annoints "Great Recession"

DSNA member Grant Barrett and DSNA vice president Orin Hargraves are quoted in today's Business Week, in a story entitled "‘Great Recession’ Gets Recognition as Entry in AP Stylebook." The article observes that "Barrett and some other lexicographers were skeptical about the timing of the inclusion, noting not only that the term has been used before for other economic downturns and also that even the Great Depression wasn’t widely used until years later. Still, they agreed this most recent period is deserving of additional recognition. 'It clearly is a shift in everyone’s perception of their financial and economic life,' said Orin Hargraves, a lexicographer who has consulted on the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Encyclopedia and is currently overseeing the new edition of the Scholastic Children’s Dictionary. 'Whether it’s a name that sticks, it’s too early to tell.'”
You can view the entire story here.

Dictionaries 30 (2009)

DSNA members & subscribers: Dictionaries 30 (2009) was shipped on 12 February 2010. If you do not receive your copy within a reasonable period of time, please inform the DSNA office.