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While working on my etymological database, I looked through countless old journals and magazines. I especially enjoyed reading the reviews of etymological dictionaries published in their pages. Some were shockingly abrasive, even virulent; others delightfully chatty and unabashedly superficial.
Frederick G. Kilgour, author of The Evolution of the Book (Oxford University Press | 1998) passed away on Monday, July 31st at his home in Chapel Hill, N.C.
By Anatoly Liberman If you have ever written a grant proposal, the form you filled out must have had a question about your methodology. Among the many useless words invented to add ceremony or to the bureaucratic procedure, methodology occupies a place of honor. It is a synonym of method(s) but pretends to have a […]
By Anatoly Liberman The Old Germanic word for “army” sounded approximately like harjaz. Its Modern German continuation is Heer, and nearly the same word is used in Icelandic, Norwegian, and Danish (army is a borrowing from French; the idea of this word is “armed force”). English has lost harjaz, but it is astounding how many […]
Donald Hall is a wonderful choice for US Poet Laureate. I’ve worked closely with him on such projects as “The Best American Poetry 1989,” and in 1994 he asked me to succeed him as general editor of the University of Michigan Press’s “Poets on Poetry” series. So I feel a special kinship with him. But […]
Continued from last week’s post: Boswell: Thursday, 2 September Johnson: Edinburgh We now returned to Edinburgh, where I passed some days with men of learning, whose names want no advancement from my commemoration, or with women of elegance, which perhaps disclaims a pedant’s praise. The conversation of the Scots grows every day less unpleasing to […]
Continued from last week’s post: Boswell: Wednesday, 1 September Boswell: Thursday, 2 September. I had slept ill. Mr Johnson’s anger had affected me much. I considered that, without any bad intention, I might suddenly forfeit his friendship. I was impatient to see him this morning. I told him how uneasy he had made me by […]
Continued from last week’s post: Boswell: Monday, 30 August 1773 Boswell: Wednesday, 1 September We came to a rich green valley, comparatively speaking, and stopped at Auchnashiel, a kind of rural village, a number of cottages being built together, as we saw all along in the Highlands. We passed many many miles today without seeing […]
Continued from last week’s post: Johnson: ‘Loch Ness’ Boswell: Monday, 30 August 1773 This day we were to begin our equitation, as I said, for I would needs make a word too. We might have taken a chaise to Fort Augustus. But we could not find horses after Inverness, so we resolved to begin here […]
by Bart Ehrman The Da Vinci Code is a murder mystery set in modern times, but its intrigue for many people has been its historical claims about Jesus and Mary Magdalene. I won’t summarize the entire plot here, as it is familiar to nearly everyone—there are only six people in the English-speaking world who have […]
Continued from last week’s post: Johnson: ‘Inverness’ Johnson: ‘Loch Ness’ Near the way, by the water side, we espied a cottage. This was the first Highland hut that I had seen; and as our business was with life and manners, we were willing to visit it. To enter a habitation without leave seems to be […]
Samuel Johnson, A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland (1775); James Boswell, The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. (1773; ed. F. A. Pottle, 1961) A young and enthusiastic James Boswell befriended Samuel Johnson (1709-84), England’s most famous man of letters, in London in 1763. Soon Boswell was urging […]
This Friday on Serial Blogging, we’re proud to present the finale of Jeffery Deaver‘s “Copycat,” which was first published in A New Omnibus of Crime. Read from the beginning of the story by clicking here!
This week in Serial Blogging – part five of Jeffery Deaver‘s “Copycat,” which was first published in A New Omnibus of Crime. Read from the beginning of the story by clicking here!
This week in Serial Blogging – part four of Jeffery Deaver‘s “Copycat,” which was first published in A New Omnibus of Crime. Read from the beginning of the story by clicking here!
This week in Serial Blogging – part three of Jeffery Deaver‘s “Copycat,” which was first published in A New Omnibus of Crime. Read from the beginning of the story by clicking here!