Language Archives

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Reading on-screen versus on paper

By Naomi S. Baron

If over the holidays you received a book, was it digital or printed on paper? E-books (and devices on which to read them) are multiplying like rabbits, as are the numbers of eReading devotees. It’s easy to assume, particularly in the United States, with the highest level of eBook sales worldwide, that the only way this trend can go is up. Yes, there was triple-digit eBook growth in 2009, 2010, and 2011, though by 2014 those figures had settled down into the single digits.

Monthly gleanings for January 2015

By Anatoly Liberman

I am pleased to report that A Happy New Year is moving along its warlike path at the predicted speed of one day in twenty-four hours and that it is already the end of January. Spring will come before you can say Jack Robinson, as Kipling’s bicolored python would put it, and soon there will be snowdrops to glean. Etymology and spelling are the topics today. Some other questions will be answered in February.

Clues, code-breaking, and cruciverbalists: the language of crosswords

By Simon Horobin

The recent release of The Imitation Game has revealed the important role crosswords played in the recruitment of code-breakers at Bletchley Park. The Daily Telegraph organised a contest in which entrants attempted to solve a puzzle in less than 12 minutes.

Our habitat: house

By Anatoly Liberman

It is astounding how mysterious the origin of such simple words as man, wife, son, god, house, and others like them is. They are old, even ancient, and over time their form has changed very little, sometimes not at all, so that we do not have to break through a thicket of sound laws to restitute their initial form.

Martin Luther King, Jr. on courage, equality, and justice

By Elizabeth Knowles

Each January, Americans commemorate the birthday of Martin Luther King Jr., reflecting on the enduring legacy of the legendary civil rights activist. From his iconic speech at the Civil Rights March of 1963, to his final oration in Memphis, Tennessee, King is remembered not only as a masterful rhetorician, but a luminary for his generation and many generations to come. These quotes, compiled from the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, demonstrate the reverberating impact of this work, particularly in a time of great social, political, and economic upheaval.

Our habitat: dwelling

By Anatoly Liberman

A dwelling is, obviously, a place in which someone dwells. Although the word is transparent , the verb dwell is not. Only its derivation poses no problems. Some verbs belong to the so-called causative group. They mean “to make do or to cause to do.”

Words of 2014 Round-up

By Alice Northover

Word of the Year season closed this weekend with the annual meeting of the American Dialect Society. As usual, major news stories dominated selections, but there has been a notable uptick in social media-related choices. It is interesting to note how hashtags are becoming more prevalent with #IndyRef as a common runner-up, and #dirtypolitics and #blacklivesmatter winning the title.

Walking in a winter wonderland . . . of words

By Christine A. Lindberg

Where I live in New York State, about two hours north of the Pennsylvania border, the transition from one season to the next is rarely (if ever) coincidental with the astronomical designation applied to it. Of the four annual calendar dates of seasonal shift, none is more laughable to us in the Leatherstocking Region than the winter solstice.

Monthly gleanings for December 2014, Part 2

By Anatoly Liberman

Although I am still in 2014, as the title of this post indicates, in the early January one succumbs to the desire to say something memorable that will set the tone to the rest of the year. So I would like to remind everybody that in 1915 James Murray, the first and greatest editor of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) or New English Dictionary (NED), died.

Exploring the best of Portland, Oregon during LSA 2015 Conference

By Carrie Napolitano and Jenny Catchings

The Linguistics Society of America’s Annual Conference takes place from Thursday, January 8th – Sunday, January 11th at the Hilton Portland & Executive Tower in Portland, Oregon. This meeting will bring together linguists from all over the world for a weekend filled with presentations, films, mini-courses, panels, and more.

Monthly etymology gleanings for December 2014, Part 1

By Anatoly Liberman

My post on laughing attracted two comments: an alleged counterexample from an Icelandic saga and a veritable flood of vituperation. The second writer was so disgusted that he could not even make himself finish reading the essay.

Defining the humanities

By Scott A. Trudell

In December 2014, OxfordDictionaries.com added numerous new words and definitions to their database, and we invited experts to comment on the new entries. Below, Scott A. Trudell, Assistant Professor of English at the University of Maryland, College Park, discusses digital humanities.

Ventriloquists, female impersonators, the genuine article?

By Matilda Tomaryn Bruckner

Among the earliest, most challenging inventors of troubadour lyric, Marcabru composed songs for the courts of southwestern France during the second quarter of the twelfth century, calling knights to crusade, castigating false lovers, defining and refining courtly values…

Orphants to foster kids: a century of Annie

By Jessie Strasbaugh

One of the best-known musicals of the 20^th century is Annie, which tells the story of a plucky orphan girl who warms the hearts of all around her, and eventually finds a loving family of her own.

Season’s greetings, or “That’s the cheese”

By Anatoly Liberman

As every student of etymology knows, today, after at least five centuries of European historical linguistics, it is hard and often impossible to discover what has been said about the origin of any word of such well-researched languages as Classical Greek, Latin, French, Spanish, German, or English. Hence my fight for updated analytic etymological dictionaries […]