If Beyonce can do it, why can't I?

Humorist Alex Horne has a column in the Independent about his quest to place a word of his own coinage in the OED: http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/comedy/features/how-to-invent-a-word-1900477.html.

What's wrong with this picture?

Dressing the set of "Mad Men" with the OED may have seemed like a clever touch, but... as DSNA members Ben Zimmer and Orion Montoya point out, the designers needed to take a closer look at the dictionary's colophon... See Ben's entertaining article "Not so Mad Props: A 'Mad Men' Anachronism," at the Visual Thesaurus, http://visualthesaurus.com/cm/wordroutes/1961/.

Quoting "the" Dictionary

Those of you who, like me, teach courses in lexicography may find this piece by examiner.com columnist Dave Wilton useful. It offers a brief and well-illustrated discussion of the belief that "the dictionary" is a monolithic and universally comprehensive wordlist. Visit http://tinyurl.com/koha8q.

Google Books, the OED, and Victorian studies

For an instructive conversation about relations between formal lexicography and the wealth of lexical data recently unearthed by Google Books, especially as regards Victorian studies, see recent postings on the topics "addiction and the OED" and "OED and Victorian studies" at the VICTORIA listserv. Participants include Mary Carpenter, Debbie Harrison, Simon Humphries, Patrick Leary, Sally Mitchell, and Fred Shapiro.

Students show teacher the definition of giving

A group of high school students in Port Neches, Texas gave their AP English teacher the 20-volume OED for Christmas. Better than an apple!

For the complete story (major holiday "Aaaaw" vibes), visit http://tinyurl.com/43upxy.