Inside the OED: can the world’s biggest dictionary survive the internet?

“At one level, few things are simpler than a dictionary: a list of the words people use or have used, with an explanation of what those words mean, or have meant. At the level that matters, though – the level that lexicographers fret and obsess about – few things could be more complex. Who used those words, where and when? How do you know? Which words do you include, and on what basis? How do you tease apart this sense from that? And what is “English” anyway?

In the case of a dictionary such as the OED – which claims to provide a “definitive” record of every single word in the language from 1000AD to the present day – the question is even larger: can a living language be comprehensively mapped, surveyed and described? Speaking to lexicographers makes one wary of using the word “literally”, but a definitive dictionary is, literally, impossible. No sooner have you reached the summit of the mountain than it has expanded another hundred feet. Then you realise it’s not even one mountain, but an interlocking series of ranges marching across the Earth. (In the age of “global English”, the metaphor seems apt.)”

Full Story: Andrew Dickson for “The Long Read” over at The Guardian

The Language Scientific Blog

“If you do not understand it, you can not translate it.”

The Language Scientific Blog is dedicated to helping you understand and translate all things related to the scientific, medical and technical industries.

How to Use the Hyphen, En Dash, and Em Dash

The differences between the hyphen (-), the en dash (–), and the em dash (—) can be confusing. Comma Queen Mary Norris from The New Yorker clarifies the difference in a video from her wonderful Youtube channel.

Mary Norris began working at The New Yorker in 1978 and was a query proofreader at the magazine for twenty-four years. She has written for The Talk of the Town and for newyorker.com, on topics ranging from her cousin Dennis Kucinich to mud wrestling in Rockaway. She is best known for her pieces on pencils and punctuation. Her book, “Between You and Me: Confessions of a Comma Queen” (Norton), is now available in paperback.

Related article — The Chicago Manual of Style: Hyphens, En Dashes, Em Dashes

Keyboard shortcuts for hyphens and dashes

elated article

When to use “me”, “myself” and “I”

Me, myself, and I. You may be tempted to use these words interchangeably, because they all refer to the same thing. But in fact, each one has a specific role in a sentence: ‘I’ is a subject pronoun, ‘me’ is an object pronoun, and ‘myself’ is a reflexive or intensive pronoun. Emma Bryce explains what each role reveals about where each word belongs.

Lesson by Emma Bryce, animation by Karrot Animation.

140 words that spellcheck might miss

( #spellcheck #punctuation )

In part one of the Pragmatists’ Guide to Grammar and Punctuation, Creative Boom takes a look at the 140 most commonly confused words in the English language.

Mistakes you’ve probably made – or are making right now. Have a look here.

RhymeZone – Find rhymes, synonyms, and more

RhymeZone is a great website to see how a word is used in the context of famous quotes, poems, and plays, but also an easy way of finding rhymes and a whole lot more. Here’s a brief overview of what Rhymezone can do for you:

Find rhymes: This function will return words that exactly rhyme with the word you typed in.
Find near rhymes: This function will return words that almost rhyme with the word you typed in.
Find synonyms: This function will return words that are the same or similar in meaning to the word you typed in.
Find anonyms: This function will return words that can mean the opposite of what you typed in.
Find definition: This function will search for definitions of the word you typed in. It will also allow you to submit your query to other online dictionaries on the Web.
Find homophones: This function will return words that have exactly the same pronunciation as what you typed in but are spelled differently.
Find similar sounding words: This function will return words that have a pronunciation that’s similar, but not necessarily the same, as what you typed in.
Match consonants: This option will return words that have the same pattern of consonant sounds. Phonetic, for example, will return fanatic.
Find related words: This option will return words that are related in some important way to what you typed in.
Find similar spellings: This option will return words in the dictionary that are spelled similarly to what you typed in. Use this feature to spell-check a word that you aren’t sure of.
Match these letters: This option will return words and phrases that contain the letters you type in.
Search for pictures: This function will search for kids-friendly pictures on the Web related to the word you typed in.
Search in Shakespeare: This function will search all of Shakespeare’s plays and poems for your word.

English with a Twist

We just added this fine “Blog About Learning The English Language to our blogroll.

Learn Early Indo-European Languages Online

Learn how to read Sanskrit, Hittite, Avestan, Old Persian, Classical Greek, Latin, Koine Greek, Gothic, Classical Armenian, Tocharian, Old Irish, Old English, Old Norse, Old Church Slavonic, Old French, Old Russian, Lithuanian, Latvian, and Albanian in ten lessons apiece.

From the Introduction to the Language Lessons by Jonathan Slocum and Winfred P. Lehmann:”Recent advances in determining the origin of western civilization and the settlement of Europe are based especially on findings in genetics, archeology and linguistics. The papers on the topic given at a conference that brought together eminent specialists in these fields under organization of the Banco Popolare di Milano have been published in Italian under the title Le radici prime dell’Europa. Gli intrecci genetici, linguistici, storici, edited by Gianluca Bocchi and Mauro Ceruti (Milan: Bruno Mondadori, 2001). While these three sciences all provide information on the settlement, only through linguistics can the people involved be identified. Yet linguistics dealing with the early period is least advanced of the three. Moreover, grammars published as introductions to the early languages are produced on the pattern of those designed for instruction of secondary school students of years past, who were expected to take eight years of Latin, six of Greek, and then proceed to the study of Sanskrit and other less widely studied languages like Old Slavic, Armenian, and Avestan. Under curricula of today, few scholars find such a course of study acceptable.

Moreover, the important ability with respect to these languages is that of reading texts, with or without the help of translations. The online introductions in Early Indo-European Online are designed to provide such ability. In this series, texts that in themselves are valuable for literary and historical as well as linguistic purposes are briefly introduced, glossed word-by-word, followed by grammatical descriptions, and accompanied by a complete glossary, a base-form dictionary, and an English meaning index. ”

Early Indo-European Online

Passing English of the Victorian era, a dictionary of heterodox English, slang and phrase

Passing English of the Victorian era, a dictionary of heterodox English, slang and phrase is complied and written by James Redding Ware, the pseudonym of Andrew Forrester the British writer who created one of the first female detectives in literary history in his book The Female Detective (1863). In this posthumously published volume Forrester turns his attention to the world of Victorian slang, in particular that found in the city of London.

You can get the book in various formats at Open Library here.

From the Preface:
HERE is a numerically weak collection of instances of ‘Passing English’. It may be hoped that there are errors on every page, and also that no entry is ‘quite too dull’. Thousands of words and phrases in existence in 1870 have drifted away, or changed their forms, or been absorbed, while as many have been added or are being added. ‘Passing English’ ripples from countless sources, forming a river of new language which has its tide and its ebb, while its current brings down new ideas and carries away those that have dribbled out of fashion. Not only is ‘Passing English’ general ; it is local ; often very seasonably local. Careless etymologists might hold that there are only four divisions of fugitive language in London west, east, north and south. But the variations are countless. Holborn knows little of Petty Italia behind Hatton Garden, and both these ignore Clerkenwell, which is equally foreign to Islington proper; in the South, Lambeth generally ignores the New Cut, and both look upon Southwark as linguistically out of bounds; while in Central London, Clare Market (disappearing with the nineteenth century) had, if it no longer has, a distinct fashion in words from its great and partially surviving rival through the centuries the world of Seven Dials, which is in St Giles’s St James’s being ractically in the next parish. In the East the confusion of languages is a world of ‘ variants ‘ there must be half-a-dozen of Anglo-Yiddish alone all, however, outgrown from the Hebrew stem. ‘Passing English’ belongs to all the classes, from the peerage class who have always adopted an imperfection in speech or frequency of phrase associated with the court, to the court of the lowest costermonger, who gives the fashion to his immediate entourage.

Some examples

Arsworm:
a little diminutive Fellow.

Blobber-lipp’d:
very thick, hanging down, or turning over.

Chounter:
to talk pertly, and (sometimes) angrily.

Dimber-Damber:
a Top-man or Prince among the Canting Crew.

Ebb-water:
when there’s but little Money in the Pocket.

Fustiluggs:
a Fulsom, Beastly, Nasty Woman.

Green-bag:
a Lawyer.

Hanktelo:
a silly Fellow, a meer Cods-head.

Itch-land:
Wales.

Jingle-brains:
a Maggot-pated Fellow.

Keaping Cully:
one that Maintains a Mistress, and parts with his Money very generously to her.

Loblolly:
any ill-cookt Mess.

Member-mug:
a Chamber-pot.

Napper of napps:
a Sheep-stealer.

Oliver’s skull:
a Chamber-pot.

Purse-proud:
haughty because Rich.

Queere Duke:
a poor decayed Gentleman; also a lean, thin, half Starved Fellow.

Rustygutts:
an old blunt Fellow.

Scrubado:
the Itch.

Top-heavy:
Drunk.

Urinal of the Planets:
Ireland … because of its frequent and great Rains.

Varlets:
Rogues, Rascals.

Word-pecker:
One that plays with Words.

Xantippe:
a Scold.

Yoak’d:
Married.

Zuche:
a wither’d or dry Stock or Stub of a Tree.

Shitschturm – The Controversial Rise of Denglisch

“The word “shitstorm” was institutionalized in the latest edition of Duden, the most-respected German-language dictionary, which was published in July,” writes Karina Martinez-Carter at Slate. “The English profanity had previously spread through the ranks of German society, even working its way into German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s vocabulary. She employed the word in a public meeting—Germanized in pronunciation to “shitschturm”—to describe the eurozone crisis.

The English compound word “flashmob” also was given its own listing in the Duden earlier this year. With terms like “flashmob” and the newly adopted “shitstorm,” the German language society Verein Deutsche Sprache criticized the German language bible for diluting the language and incorporating too many Anglicisms. The society awarded Duden its “adulterator of the language” title, with the society’s chairman stating, “Whoever suggests the ridiculous and phoney Anglicism soccer as a replacement for Fussball richly deserves this [award].”

In today’s globalized world, languages freely borrow from each other, and with German and English stemming from the same family of languages, cross-pollination occurs with particular ease, both in adopting full words into the lexicon and creating hybrids. In fact, a language term exists for this blending of English words into German words, phrases, or sentences: “Denglisch.”

Read on at Slate.

Photo by TORSTEN SILZ/AFP/Getty Images