Oxford University Press's
Academic Insights for the Thinking World
“To me, the history of etymologists’ wanderings reads like a thriller: so many naive and clever suggestions, such a blend of ignorance and ingenuity!” The Oxford Etymologist traverses the history of “broke.”
At first glance, the significance of a piece of research may not be obvious, either from a paper submitted to a journal or from a published article. Its novelty, importance, and future impact are often uncertain, needing time to become clear to the research community.
It is a time of worldwide reckoning for museums that display or contain ancestral dead. But the specific story of the collection of Andean ancestors charts a different origin for this global process, and it asks us to think with more nuance regarding what to do with the museums it created.
The Oxford Etymologist details the origin and development of the adjective “clever”.
People with eating disorders often do not receive sufficient support within the United States healthcare system, which can have a devastating emotional and monetary impact on patients and their families.
In June 1972, Martin McNally pulled off one of the most daring airline hijackings in American history, parachuting from the aft stairs of a Boeing 727 with half a million dollars in cash.
Interjections like oh or wow are sometimes described—too simply—as “emotion words.” They certainly can express a wide range of emotions, including delight (ah), discovery (aha), boredom (blah), disgust (blech), frustration (argh), derision of another (duh) or one’s self (Homer Simpson’s d’oh).
They certainly can express a wide range of emotions, including delight (ah), discovery (aha), boredom (blah), disgust (blech), frustration (argh), derision of another (duh) or one’s self (Homer Simpson’s d’oh).
The stigmatization of self-injury remains common. Such stigma makes it difficult for people to reach out about their experience, even when they may want support. Further, many people who do not have lived experience, but who are concerned about someone who does, want to offer support but are unsure about how to navigate this. The […]
Psychosis is a rare experience and often misunderstood within society. Learn more about the symptoms, stages, and treatments for psychosis in the infographic.
Historical linguist Tim Machan explores the history of the English language and what we (can) know about it, and how it has been recorded throughout history.
Depersonalization is the third most common psychiatric symptom, yet clinicians and lay people still know little about its presentation and treatment. While it can indeed be a symptom accompanying other mental illnesses, it is also a full-blown disorder itself, recognized by every major diagnostic manual.
The 2023 award of the Nobel Prize for literature to the Norwegian writer Jon Fosse brings Norwegian literature into focus for English-speaking readers and provides a fresh angle from which to view the writings of Knut Hamsun.
It is amazing how many synonyms for “fool” exist! It is almost funny that fool, the main English word for “a stupid person,” is not native, says the Oxford Etymologist in this week’s exploration of the origins of fools.
Maryemma Graham on writing “The House Where My Soul Lives: The Life of Margaret Walker”, the complete, authorized biography of America’s first award-winning Black writer.
Some words are so rare that few people know and even fewer study them. Such is “brocard”, the “outcast” subject of today’s blog post from the Oxford Etymologist.
Jonathan Wikeley explores Vaughan Williams’s “Four Last Songs”, looking at the textual meaning, the process of arranging for choir, and composer’s philosophy of “letting go” of the music.