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Celebre la Semana Nacional de Bibliotecas con acceso gratuito al OED y Oxford Reference, disponible para América del Norte, del Sur y el Caribe hasta el 20 de Abril. Visite cualquiera de los sitios Web y utilice libraryweek como nombre de usuario y contraseña para acceder a todo el contenido que los sitios tienen que ofrecer. Todo el mundo tendrá acceso a través del mismo nombre de usuario y contraseña y no se requiere ningún registro.
Celebrate National Library Week with free access to the OED and Oxford Reference, available to everyone in North and South America through the 20th of April. Visit either site and use the special username and password to login and access everything the sites have to offer. Everyone will have access through the same login and no registration of any kind is required.
By Anatoly Liberman
Within a year, two recent articles on the origin of the word boy have come to my attention. This is great news. Keeping a talent of such value under a bushel and withholding it from the rest of the world would be unforgivable. Nowadays, if a philological journal does not come as a reward for the membership in a popular society, its circulation is extremely low.
By Lynda Mugglestone
In 1903, the motto “Deeds not Words” was adopted by Emmeline Pankhurst as the slogan of the new Women’s Social and Political Union. This aimed above all to secure women the vote, but it marked a deliberate departure in the methods to be used. Over fifty years of peaceful campaigning had brought no change to women’s rights in this respect; drastic action was, Emmeline decided, now called for.
By Anatoly Liberman
The title of this post is meant to warn our readers that the origin of the word thief has never been discovered. Perhaps an apology is in order. I embarked on today’s seemingly thankless topic after I received a question from Denmark about the possible ties between Danish to “two” and tyv “thief.”
By Simon Horobin
As part of his agenda to improve primary school education, Michael Gove plans to invest more teaching time in driving up standards of spelling; his proposals include a list of 162 words which all eleven-year old children will be expected to spell correctly. As his critics were quick to point out, Gove’s belief in the importance of accurate spelling was somewhat undermined by a number of misspellings in the White Paper itself; Tristram Hunt gleefully suggested that Gove, “of all people,” should be able to spell bureaucracy.
By Anatoly Liberman
This has been a good month for the “gleanings”: I have received many questions and many kind words through the blog and privately. My usual thanks to those who read and react.
By Anatoly Liberman
I am saying goodbye to the Harlem Shake. The miniseries began two weeks ago withdance, moved on to twerk and twerp, and now the turn of the verb shake has come round. Reference books say little about the origin of shake. They usually list a few cognates and produce the Germanic etymon skakan (both a’s were short)
By Anatoly Liberman
I decided to throw a look at a few tw-words while writing my previous post on the origin of dance. In descriptions of grinding and the Harlem Shake, twerk occurs with great regularity. The verb means “to move one’s buttocks in a suggestive way.” It has not yet made its way into OED and perhaps never will (let us hope so), but its origin hardly poses a problem: twerk must be a blend of twist (or twitch) and work (or jerk).
By Anatoly Liberman
American schools dance nonstop. A wild display of “flailing arms and wriggling torsos,” known as the Harlem Shake, is the latest addition to our civilization. High school “kids” writhe eel-like on the floor, chairs, and tables, fall, sometimes break arms and legs, and have fun, which is the unassailable backbone of our educational system. At some places, teachers and principals dance with the kids and thus double the amount of fun.
By Anatoly Liberman
My usual thanks to those who have commented on the posts, written me letters privately or through OUP, and corrected the rare but irritating typos. I especially appreciate comments that deal with the languages remote from my sphere of interest: Arabic, Farsi, Romany, and so forth. But, even while dealing with the languages that are close to my area of expertise (for example, Sanskrit and Frisian), quite naturally, I feel less comfortable in them than in English, German, or Icelandic (my “turf”).
By Anatoly Liberman
Dozens of words have not been forgotten only because Shakespeare used them. Scotch (as in scotch the snake), bare bodkin, and dozens of others would have taken their quietus and slept peacefully in the majestic graveyard of the Oxford English Dictionary but for their appearance in Shakespeare’s plays. Aroint would certainly have been unknown but for its appearance in Macbeth and King Lear.
By Anatoly Liberman
The questions people ask about word origins usually concern slang, family names, and idioms. I cannot remember being ever asked about the etymology of house, fox, or sun. These are such common words that we take them for granted, and yet their history is often complicated and instructive. In this blog, I usually stay away from them, but I sometimes let my Indo-European sympathies run away with me. Today’s subject is of this type.
Dictionaries never simply spring into being, but represent the work and research of many. Only a select few of the people who have helped create the Oxford English Dictionary, however, can lay claim to the coveted title ‘Editor’. In the first of an occasional series for the OxfordWords blog on the Editors of the OED, Peter Gilliver introduces the most celebrated, Sir James A. H. Murray.
Ever wondered what the Latin word for owl is? Or what links Fred Perry and Ping Pong? Maybe not, but you may be able to find the answers to these questions and many more at your fingertips in your local library. As areas for ideas, inspiration, imagination, and information Public Libraries are stocked full of not only books but online resources to help one and all find what they need.
Did you know that ‘croissant’ literally means ‘crescent’ or that oranges are native to China? Do you realize that the word ‘pie’ has been around for seven hundred years in English or that ‘toast’ comes from the Latin word for ‘scorch’? John Ayto explores the word origins of food and drink in The Diner’s Dictionary. We’ve made a little quiz based on the book. Are you hungry for it?