To Set Asunder: The Separation and Synthesis of Tiana Nobile’s Cleave
A word becomes a reckoning, a reconciling of contradiction.
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Posts Tagged: OED
The Making of the OED
The Oxford English Dictionary, the first comprehensive catalog of the English language, took seventy years to compile. Volunteers aided the project, and one of the biggest contributors happened to be a murderer who lived in an insane asylum: Through the years, the OED’s editor had enlisted hundreds of volunteers around the English-speaking world, and probably […]
...moreThe Year of Vaping
The Oxford Dictionaries “Word of the Year” has been announced, and young people around the world will be called upon to explain the word “vape”—and its significance as part of cultural shifts surrounding marijuana and tobacco—to their older relatives in the coming days. The dictionary folks acknowledge that folks have been “vaping” since the early […]
...moreThe Plight of the Anglocentric Dictionary
Beware–your Oxford English Dictionary is missing thousands of words! It has been revealed that former OED editor, the late Robert Burchfield secretly deleted thousands of words that he deemed too “foreign” and placed the blame on other editors. Allison Flood at The Guardian dispels the rumors. “Examples of Burchfield’s deleted words include balisaur, an Indian […]
...moreThis Is Why the UK Always Seems So Much Smarter Than the US
The Oxford English Dictionary’s word of the year is “omnishambles,” while the Oxford American Dictionary’s word of the year is…”GIF.” We can’t even agree on how to pronounce GIF! The British runners-up underscore our cultural differences as well; “mummy porn,” for example, sounds a little stranger to the Yankee ear than it probably did to […]
...moreTweetin, Not Twitchin
What’s in a name? For companies like twitter, a lot of potential profits and some OED support. These are the reasons we’re not jittering or twitching, which were both potential candidates for the company’s name. You can follow the trajectory of how twitter’s title came to be here.
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