http://blog.oup.com/2011/12/1961_oed/ Academic insights for the thinking world. Tue, 18 Jun 2013 14:01:09 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.4.2 http://blog.oup.com/2011/12/1961_oed/#comment-429688 Slang is good for you | OUPblog Sun, 26 May 2013 20:27:20 +0000 http://blog.oup.com/?p=20451#comment-429688 [...] blog posts: “The invented languages of clockwork apples and oranges” and “The Oxford English Dictionary: my favourite book ever“ More OUPblog posts on slang include: “Slang words: not what you think,” [...] [...] blog posts: “The invented languages of clockwork apples and oranges” and “The Oxford English Dictionary: my favourite book ever“ More OUPblog posts on slang include: “Slang words: not what you think,” [...]

]]> http://blog.oup.com/2011/12/1961_oed/#comment-415648 Anthony Fri, 17 May 2013 12:26:42 +0000 http://blog.oup.com/?p=20451#comment-415648 Fab article, old but first time reader :). Love anything about dictionaries and it always has to be the Oxford! :) Fab article, old but first time reader . Love anything about dictionaries and it always has to be the Oxford!

]]> http://blog.oup.com/2011/12/1961_oed/#comment-247769 OUPblog » Blog Archive » The invented languages of Clockwork Apples and Oranges Fri, 20 Jan 2012 11:31:51 +0000 http://blog.oup.com/?p=20451#comment-247769 [...] Brandon Robshaw’s review of A Clockwork Apple in The Independent (13 April 2008) begins with a two paragraph pastiche of the novel’s challenging style and ends swiftly with the judgement, ‘Are you tiring of this? Me too’. It illustrates the problem of what the linguist Michael Halliday calls anti-language, from teenage slang to the literary idiosyncrasy of Joyce’s Finnegans Wake — it could be that the invented language is tiring, that the author has erred in the saying, but it might just as easily be a case of bad listening, as when adults can’t hear the slang teens speak all around them, and the teens quite accurately complain that the adults aren’t listening to them — they refuse to listen on the terms set by teens as surely as teens refuse to conform to adult expectations. But, after all, do the teens really want the adults to listen? When the style of A Clockwork Apple rubs us the wrong way, when we reject its terms, we re-enact a fundamental sort of linguistic disconnection, after which we may find an occasional connection. Michael P. Adams is Associate Professor of English and Director of Undergraduate Studies in the Department of English Language and Literature at Indiana University. He currently edits quarterly journal American Speech and is President Elect of the Dictionary Society of North America. His published work includes Slayer Slang: A Buffy the Vampire Slayer Lexicon (2003) and Slang: The People’s Poetry (2009). His most recent book, From Elvish to Klingon, published in November 2011. You can read more by Michael Adams on OUPblog here. [...] [...] Brandon Robshaw’s review of A Clockwork Apple in The Independent (13 April 2008) begins with a two paragraph pastiche of the novel’s challenging style and ends swiftly with the judgement, ‘Are you tiring of this? Me too’. It illustrates the problem of what the linguist Michael Halliday calls anti-language, from teenage slang to the literary idiosyncrasy of Joyce’s Finnegans Wake — it could be that the invented language is tiring, that the author has erred in the saying, but it might just as easily be a case of bad listening, as when adults can’t hear the slang teens speak all around them, and the teens quite accurately complain that the adults aren’t listening to them — they refuse to listen on the terms set by teens as surely as teens refuse to conform to adult expectations. But, after all, do the teens really want the adults to listen? When the style of A Clockwork Apple rubs us the wrong way, when we reject its terms, we re-enact a fundamental sort of linguistic disconnection, after which we may find an occasional connection. Michael P. Adams is Associate Professor of English and Director of Undergraduate Studies in the Department of English Language and Literature at Indiana University. He currently edits quarterly journal American Speech and is President Elect of the Dictionary Society of North America. His published work includes Slayer Slang: A Buffy the Vampire Slayer Lexicon (2003) and Slang: The People’s Poetry (2009). His most recent book, From Elvish to Klingon, published in November 2011. You can read more by Michael Adams on OUPblog here. [...]

]]> http://blog.oup.com/2011/12/1961_oed/#comment-247357 Madman, Murderer and Words. | I choose how I will spend the rest of my life Mon, 16 Jan 2012 10:05:08 +0000 http://blog.oup.com/?p=20451#comment-247357 [...] The Oxford English Dictionary: “my favorite book ever” (oup.com) [...] [...] The Oxford English Dictionary: “my favorite book ever” (oup.com) [...]

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