Oxford University Press's
Academic Insights for the Thinking World

February 2012

Monthly Gleanings for February 2012, Part 1

By Anatoly Liberman
There has been a good deal to glean this month because the comments and responses have been numerous and also because, although February is a short month even in a leap year, in 2012 it had five Wednesdays. Among the questions was one about the profession and qualifications of an etymologist. It is a recurring question from young correspondents, and I have answered it briefly more than once, but always in the “gleanings.” It occurred to me that perhaps I should write a short essay on this subject and, if someone else asks me about such things in the future, I will be able to refer to this post. The rest will be discussed next week.

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David Gascoyne and the missing portrait

By Robert Fraser
I am often asked to name my favourite poem by the British writer David Gascoyne (1916-2001), my biography of whom appears with OUP this month. Bearing in mind Gascoyne was in his time an interpreter of Surrealism, an existentialist of a religious variety and a proponent of ecology, you might expect me to go for a poem along these lines. Instead, I usually choose a poem of the early 1940s entitled “Odeur de Pensée.”

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What is a leap year?

Today, 29 February 2012, is a ‘leap day’. To understand more about the leap phenomenon, and the significance of 29 February in history, we turn to The Oxford Companion to the Year: an exploration of calendar customs and time-reckoning.

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Final episode of TV series M*A*S*H airs

This Day in World History
On February 28, 1983, at the end of its eleventh season, M*A*S*H said goodbye to television. More than 105 million Americans in about 51 million homes watched the series finale, a two-and-a-half-hour-long movie directed by star Alan Alda that featured the show’s characteristic blend of comedy and drama.

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Alejandrina Cabrera should be on the San Luis city council ballot

By Dennis Barron
For perhaps the first time ever, a candidate was struck from an Arizona ballot for poor English. Judge John Nelson, of the Yuma County Superior Court, ruled that Alejandrina Cabrera cannot run for city council in the border town of San Luis because she doesn’t know enough English to fulfill her duties.

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Robert Moses and the Second Avenue Subway

By Joan Marans Dim
The world was allegedly created in seven days, so why is it taking New York City so long — some 90 years, or possibly longer — to create the Second Avenue Subway? According to the MTA, proposals to build a north-south subway line along Second Avenue date back to 1929. But it wasn’t until March 2007 — 78 years later — that the first construction contract for Phase One of the Second Avenue Subway was awarded.

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Why Memoir Matters

By G. Thomas Couser
Memoir gained sudden prominence in the mid 1990s, when a few memoirs by unheralded authors–Lucy Grealy’s Autobiography of a Face, Frank McCourt’s Angela’s Ashes, Mary Karr’s Liars’ Club, and Susanna Kaysen’s Girl, Interrupted–had spectacular sales and favorable reviews. The memoir boom was underway.

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SciWhys: a cure for Carys? Part Two

By Jonathan Crowe
Using science to understand our world can help to improve our lives. In my last post and in this one, I want to illustrate this point with an example of how progress in science is providing hope for the future for one family, and many others like them.

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Adolf Hitler’s treason trial begins in Munich

This Day in World History
On February 26, 1924, Adolf Hitler and nine associates stood trial in a Munich courtroom. The charge was treason — they were accused of trying to overthrow the German republic. That day, Hitler turned the tables to accuse the German leaders who had surrendered in 1918, ending World War I, and created the republican government he so despised: “There is no such thing as high treason against the traitors of 1918,” he proclaimed.

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Debate: What is the origin of “buckaroo”? OED Editor responds

We (unintentionally) started a debate about the origin of the word “buckaroo” with our quiz Can you speak American? last week. Richard Bailey, author of Speaking American, argues that it comes from the West African language Efik. Here OED editor Katrin Thier argues that the origin isn’t quite so clear.

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Slang evolution = lush

In these videos, The Life of Slang author Julie Coleman tells us how — and how fast — slang can spread from one side of the globe to another, and gives us 26 ways of saying ‘groovy’.

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Presidential Pigmies

By Frank Prochaska
What would the Founding Fathers think of the candidates in the Republican primaries? If the remaining presidential hopefuls were to be asked this question in a televised debate, the ignorant and dissembling replies would be a sorry spectacle.

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Israel and Iran at the eleventh hour

Professor Louis René Beres and General John T. Chain (USAF/ret.)
In world politics, irrational does not mean “crazy.” It does mean valuing certain goals or objectives even more highly than national survival. In such rare but not unprecedented circumstances, the irrational country leadership may still maintain a distinct rank-order of preferences. Unlike trying to influence a “crazy” state, therefore, it is possible to effectively deter an irrational adversary.

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