Oxford University Press's
Academic Insights for the Thinking World
By Geoffrey Greif
Can you believe the word “bromance” has now made it into the accepted lexicon through its addition to the New Oxford American Dictionary? I, for one, could not be more tickled. Imagine: men now have their own word that captures our platonic affection for each other. Will “manfriend” be far behind?
By Amy Mandelker
Moscow is choked with smoke from surrounding fires. I follow developments online, reading over the weekend that they have been digging trenches to cut off the path of the blaze before it detonates nuclear stockpiles.
By Anatoly Liberman
Is Standard English pronunciation a viable concept? I think it is, even if only to a point. People’s accents differ, but some expectation of a more or less leveled pronunciation (that is, of the opposite of a broad dialect) in great public figures and media personalities probably exists. Jimmy Carter seems to have made an effort to sound less Georgian after he became President. If I am not mistaken, John Kennedy tried to suppress some of the most noticeable features of his Bostonian accent. But perhaps those changes happened under the influence of the new environment. In some countries, the idea of “Standard” has a stronger grip
By Alec Ryrie
My book started out as a bit of fun, trying to tell a rollicking good story. I did that, I hope, but I also ended up somewhere more controversial than I expected: caught in the ongoing crossfire between science and religion. What I realised is that you can’t make sense of their relationship without inviting a third ugly sister to the party: magic.
By Craig Robertson
1) The passport in its modern form is a product of World War I. During the war most countries introduced emergency passport requirements that became permanent in the 1920s under the guidance of the League of Nations. Prior to World War I in the absence of required passports and visas immigration and government officials along the U.S. border used people’s physical appearance to determine if they were entitled to enter the country. Inspectors were confident they
By Elvin Lim
The Republican “Pledge to America” is an attempt to show that the Republicans are more than a Party of No. The Pledge to America, however, is just a clever way to disguise a set of promises to undo or not do; but it is not ultimately a pledge to do anything. Party platforms make a little more sense in the British parliamentary system, from whence they developed, because parliamentary sovereignty there does not have to contend with the separation of powers. But the Republican’s watered-down platform is a stunt if only for one reason alone. It’s called the presidential veto, and the Pledge exaggerates what Republican takeovers in one or both chambers of Congress in November could achieve. This is a Pledge of faux intentions because Republicans know full well that
The world’s total annual consumption of crude oil is one cubic mile of oil (CMO). The world’s total annual energy consumption – from all energy sources – is currently 3 CMO. By the middle of this century the world will need between 6 and 9 CMO of energy per year to provide for its citizens. In their new book, Hewitt Crane, Edwin Kinderman, and Ripudaman Malhotra introduce this brand new measuring unit and show that the use of CMO replaces mind-numbing multipliers (such as billions, trillions, and quadrillions) with an easy-to-understand volumetric unit. It evokes a visceral response and allows experts, policy makers and the general public alike to form a mental picture of the magnitude of the challenge we face.
By Dennis Meredith
Since Oxford published my book Explaining Research in February, I’ve learned a great deal about book marketing. And since the success of a book depends so critically on adept marketing, I’d like to share those lessons. First of all, authors should always consider themselves critically important marketers of their own books. After all, it’s your book, so who else would know the most about it and care most about its success? Begin by
By Dennis Baron
Tea Partiers seem intent on throwing more and more of the American government overboard. Yet there’s one area where both these wing nuts and many ordinary conservatives support more big government, not less: they want the government to make everyone in America speak English.
In the second episode of The Oxford Comment, Lauren and Michelle celebrate geekdom. They interview a Jeopardy champion, talk sex & attraction with a cockatoo, discover what makes an underdog a hero, and “geek out” with some locals.
By Sharon Zukin
Shortly before 8 p.m. on a warm September evening the High Line, Manhattan’s newest public park and the only one located above street level, is crowded. Men and women, old and young, tourists from overseas and longtime New Yorkers have climbed the winding metal stairs to the former railroad freight line, now a mile-long, landscaped walkway, just to view the sunset over the Hudson River. There are more people up on the High Line than down on the streets.
By Robin Le Poidevin
Do we really need agnosticism nowadays? The inventor of the name ‘agnosticism’, the Victorian evolutionist Thomas Henry Huxley, certainly found it useful to have a word describing his lack of certainty when he was surrounded by those who seemed to have no such doubt. But then he lived in a period of transition.
By Andrew R. Murphy
There are any number of ways to interpret the [recent] events on the National Mall: the dueling rallies, the competition over the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “dream,” the intertwining of piety, politics, and patriotism. Many of these have already been blogged and commented on ad infinitum. And so first, to the obvious
By Anatoly Liberman
There is something righteous about the right hand: it is supposed to point in the right direction and do everything right. In older Indo-European, even a special word existed for “right hand,” as evidenced by Greek dexios (stress on the last syllable), Latin dexter, and others. A strong association connects the right hand with the south and the left hand with the north. Someone standing with his face turned to the rising sun (for example, while praying), will have his right hand stretched to the south and his left hand to the north. Old Irish tuath meant both “north” and “left” (when facing east). This case is not unique.
By Elvin Lim
For Republicans to take over 10 seats to gain control of the Senate, 2010 Republican voters must not see themselves as voting the Bush/Rove Republicans (who were kicked out in 2006 and 2008) back in, but for a new type of Republican newly infused with Tea Party sentiments. The question then is, can the Tea Party be synergistically incorporated into the Republican electoral machine?
The Atlantic City celebrated in “Boardwalk Empire” was not just a city of mobsters, speakeasies, and brothels. It was, in the words of a longtime resident born in Georgia, a “Jim Crow for sure.” Its schools, clubs, neighborhoods, and movie houses were segregated. In 1923, just three years after the start of Prohibition, the city opened a brand new school that included a 1,000-seat auditorium and a 6,000-pipe organ, at a total cost of over $1.75 million. It also included an indoor pool, but rather than have whites and African Americans swim together, officials covered it up.