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.

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.

"The gimmicky sideshow of the syntactic circus"

What a great line! Dan Zak of the Washington Post has written a delightful article on this week's American Dialect Society meeting. He not only reports on the selection of the 2009 word of the year ("tweet") and word of the decade ("google") but also on Steve Kleinedler's new tattoo! Check out the debate--sadly, no illustration of Steve's embellishment--at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/08/AR2010010803692.html. You can also visit ADL's more sober account of the proceedings, over which ADS executive secretary Alan Metcalf and American Speech columnist Grant Barrett presided, at http://www.americandialect.org/.

More Words of 2000-2009 -- dot.com flavored

Catchword, a naming company (wow, what a concept), has identified the 10 biggest dot-com naming trends of the decade-- and their picks for best and worst examples. Check out the story at http://search.sys-con.com/node/1229917 or the full version at http://tinyurl.com/yamx72w. (The company has no relation to the DSNA singing group.)

1,000,000th word foofarah

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.

Parlez vous Globish?

A Frenchman's quixotic attempt to build an empire based on the global dialect dubbed `English-lite'. To read the rest of the article from the Toronto Star, visit http://www.thestar.com/News/Insight/article/598048

My DURO: How I Accidently Invented a Word

By Erin McKean

I'VE BEEN WORKING as a lexicographer - someone who edits dictionaries, for those of you disinclined to pick one up just now - for more than 15 years, and the question that I am asked most often, by far, is "How can I make up my own word and get it in the dictionary?"

To read more of Erin's article, originally published in the Boston Globe, please visit: http://tinyurl.com/bxhjzy

The Buzzwords of 2008

From The New York Times, December 21, 2008


By MARK LEIBOVICH and GRANT BARRETT (Grant is a DSNA member)
WASHINGTON — Politics without buzzwords is like sports without clichés, math without numbers or Blago without bleeps. Tough to imagine, in other words, especially in such a game-changer of a campaign year in which buzzwords were flying like shoes.

To read the rest of the article, visit http://www.nytimes.com/. You must be a member to read the article, but membership is free.

Madoff unlikely to oust Ponzi in lingo

For the rest of this Reuters article visit http://tinyurl.com/6z3boy.

Webster's New World® College Dictionary Chooses "Overshare" as the 2008 Word of the Year

For the rest of the press release, visit http://tinyurl.com/65ebv4.

LB

2008 Word of the Year

"Hypermiling" is New Oxford American Dictionary 2008 Word of the Year. For details visit:
http://dmnnewswire.digitalmedianet.com/articles/viewarticle.jsp?id=576972

LB

"Meh" Added to Collins Dictionary

Word featured in The Simpsons becomes latest addition to Collins English Dictionary. A word which suggests a lack of enthusiasm has beaten hundreds of others to become the latest addition to the Collins English Dictionary. For the rest of the article, visit http://tinyurl.com/6a633f.

LB