Oxford University Press's
Academic Insights for the Thinking World
All dictionaries have mistakes. Ghost words creep in, there are occasional misspellings, or perhaps the printer was hung over one day and misplaced some punctuation. In addition to these normal forms of human error there are others that are created by language, as it continues its inexorable change.
Pink Dandelion answers a few questions on his Very Short Introduction to The Quakers
It is not fortuitous that many words like ‘puzzle’, ‘conundrum’, and ‘quiz’ are themselves puzzles from an etymological point of view. They arose as slang, sometimes as student slang, and as we don’t know the circumstances in which they were coined, our chances of discovering their origin is low.
Perlmutter looks at the readership of political blogs.
Adrienne L. Kaeppler, author of The Pacfic Arts of Polynesia and Micronesia, tells us a little about traditional Polynesian tattooing
Ben’s place of the week is Sint Maarten, Netherlands Antilles.
A closer look at the Bancroft Prize.
What should we look for in the District of Columbia v. Heller case?
An excerpt from Lawrence J. Schneiderman’s Embracing Our Mortality.
An opinion on health care reform
A look at Hiraybayashi v. United States.
Happy Friday to all! It’s been quite a crazy week here in New York but fear not, I still have lots of links to distract you today. Happy surfing. Why peace activists shouldn’t get discouraged. Why you should be reading the financial news. Dirty car art (not that kind of dirty!) What you need to […]
Some word loving links.
Alan Sokal, author of Beyond the Hoax, discusses why we should take evidence seriously.
Two opposite forces act on the brain of someone who sets out to trace the origin of a word. To cite the most famous cases, coward is supposedly a “corruption” of cowherd and sirloin came into being when an English king dubbed an edible loin at table (Sir Loin). Such fantasies have tremendous appeal.
Evan Schnittman tells us a tale of past marketing success that may help publishing move forward.