Honoring Ernest Weekley
This is the second and last post on Ernest Weekley, an excellent scholar and engaging writer. The “installment” a week ago dealt with the history of Standard English through the eyes of the inimitable Mrs. Gamp.
What can we expect to see in the 2024 Parliament? [long read]
Labour’s landslide electoral win may not have been unexpected, but few expected to see quite so many historic firsts arise from it. For the first time in over fifty years, a governing party with a majority in the elected House has been replaced by another party with a majority.
A listener’s guide to James Baldwin’s “Sonny’s Blues” [playlist]
Discover the musical veins of James Baldwin’s 1957 short story “Sonny’s Blues” as we mark the 100th anniversary of the writer and civil rights activist’s birth and hear from Tom Jenks as he reflects on some of these key musical works.
Ernest Weekley and standard English
Many people who are interested in word origins know Ernest Weekley’s English etymological dictionary. I am sorry that we cannot post his photo: for some mysterious reason, all his portraits on the Internet are copyrighted. He wrote many excellent books on English words.
20 HBCU graduates that have shaped America [slideshow]
Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) are dedicated to empowering students and alumni with the tools to drive significant civic and cultural change. Through their intentional focus on leadership, advocacy, and excellence, HBCU graduates have made remarkable strides in political, legal, cultural, and artistic fields.
How interdisciplinarity enhances our understanding of social media’s societal impact
Addressing today’s most pressing challenges requires a new approach to thinking. An interdisciplinary transformative approach can advance knowledge by exploiting and harmonizing the strengths of various disciplines within a unified framework.
A fabulous story, or spilling etymological beans
An instructive essay on etymology need not always be devoted to a word going back to the hoariest antiquity. It can also deal with an “exotic” borrowing like coffee, for example.
Iris Murdoch on how to lose yourself in nature
Anxiety is the most frequently diagnosed mental health problem in the world today. The handful of psychiatric treatments for anxiety that nowadays dominate the field are well known. But it’s worth remembering that philosophy also has a long and illustrious history as a form of anti-anxiety therapy.
Rethinking unjust enrichment
Restitutionary claims are pertinent to our daily interactions and commercial dealings. These claims arise in many scenarios including: improperly collected taxes, mistaken payments, disputes between cohabitants, payments on another person’s debt, mistaken improvements on another person’s property, and provision of unrequested services.
Religious faith in contemporary society
The idea that religious beliefs claim truth is an unpopular position in Western societies. Any religion can sometimes be out of step with whatever the current secular consensus about moral priorities is.
Some very unique redundancies
One of the quirkier features of the English syntax has to do with the simple word all. All is a quantity word, or quantifier in the terminology of grammarians and logicians. It indicates an entirety of something.
Informers: secrets, truths, and dignity
Over 100,000 individuals acted as secret informers reporting to state security police in Czechoslovakia during the Communist years. The contents of all their reports were saved in extensive police files. Similar dynamics occurred throughout all of Eastern Europe.
Coffee all over the world
An instructive essay on etymology need not always be devoted to a word going back to the hoariest antiquity. It can also deal with an “exotic” borrowing like coffee, for example.
A duty of care? Archaeologists, wicked problems, and the future
Archaeology needs to stay relevant. To do so, it will need to change, but that won’t be simple given how much needs to change, and how many of the things that need changing are systemic, firmly embedded both within disciplinary traditions and practice and within society.
Bringing decolonisation to law teaching: fulfilling the promise of legal pedagogy
I, like many others, came to the law school because I heard justice and freedom and peace in its name. For many, like me, the sojourn into the study of law is triggered by some event or situation. For me it was the Rwandan genocide of 1994.
Six books to understand international affairs [reading list]
The world we live in is complex and ever-changing. This year India, Iran, the UK, and the US, to name a few countries, are facing pivotal elections, and many diplomatic relationships—in Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and beyond—are at a turning point. Check out these titles to better understand the state of geopolitics and the movement of power in the world.